Airbags and children

[TeaVR]

Do you need to deactivate front airbags for children sitting in front facing seats?

My daughter is 3 1/2 and I was thinking about taking her out in a Z4. I can't disable the airbags.

Thoughts?

[spaceship]

I coudn't say for sure.

Best thing to do would be to check the owners manual. See what BMW suggest.

[Agrilla]

The general advice is to use rear seats unless there is no other choice (as in this scenario) make sure that they're in a booster seat, and slide the seat back as far as it will possibly go, but also ask the manufacturer how far the airbags deploy, and whether it is safe to use a child seat in the front

RoSPA's Advice

[Tallbut Buxomly]

I believe you can in fact turn it off.

http://www.fixya.com/cars/t721547-turning_off_airb...

Ok seems not quite so clearcut. Cant believe it was optional. Surprised they didnt make it optional to have seats. However looks like it might be fixable.

http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&a...

[JQ]

The manual for my MX5 says you can put a forward facing car seat in it with the airbag on. It's only rear facing seats that can't go in. However, I have taken the precation of manually disconnecting the airbag. My 2 year old loves being driven to nursery with the hood down.

[TeaVR]

Never had to worry about things like this in my TVR (however, I did worry about everything else! )

[Eviltad]

Its rear facing child seats that are the worry. The empty airbag can drape over the childs face.

Front facing she should be fine although advise for smaller children is always carry them in the rear of the car where possible.

Some modern airbags use tear seam weaving structures which effectively tailor the size of the inflated bag to the size of occupant/amount of force.

[gary71]

I would not recommend placing a child that isn't large enough to sit comfortably on a booster seat, correctly using an adult belt front of an airbag. This puts them approximately 8 years old, even then place the seat back as far as possible

Passenger airbags have to fill plenty of space, so they deploy quite aggressively. Adaptive systems with PODS (Passenger Occupancy Detection System) tend to be an American only fitment and they are normally calibrated to detect rear facing child seats and turn the bag off. These American systems will be set to deploy the only first stage of the bag at speed of 16mph or less into a solid wall, with a 5th percentile female in the seat.

So unfortunately in summary, don't put a 3 1/2 year old in front of a airbag that's on

[Ozzie Osmond]

With a "booster" seat in the front of the car and the passenger seat pushed back as far as it can go I really don't see why you should have any worries.

[s24ng]

what do u all think about a 20month old in th front if need be? airbags on or off?bareing in mind the child would be in a maxi-cosi carseat (forward facing obviously.)

[gary71]

s24ng said:

what do u all think about a 20month old in th front if need be? airbags on or off?bareing in mind the child would be in a maxi-cosi carseat (forward facing obviously.)

Nope, see my post above. It's not worth the risk.