Audi A6 Typ 4G: Advanced front airbag system
Your vehicle is equipped with a front Advanced Airbag System in compliance with United States Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, as well as Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (CMVSS) 208 as applicable at the time your vehicle was manufactured.
The front Advanced Airbag System supplements the safety belts to provide additional protection for the driver's and front passenger's heads and upper bodies in frontal crashes. The airbags inflate only in frontal impacts when the vehicle deceleration is high enough.
The front Advanced Airbag System for the front seat occupants is not a substitute for your safety belts. Rather, it is part of the overall occupant restraint system in your vehicle. Always remember that the airbag system can only help to protect you, if you are sitting upright, wearing your safety belt and wearing it properly. This is why you and your passengers must always be properly restrained, not just because the law requires you to be.
The Advanced Airbag System in your vehicle has been certified to meet the "low risk" requirements for 3 and 6 year-old children on the passenger side and very small adults on the driver side. The low risk deployment criteria are intended to help reduce the risk of injury through interaction with the front airbag that can occur, for example, by being too close to the steering wheel and instrument panel when the airbag inflates.
In addition, the system has been certified to comply with the "suppression" requirements of the Safety Standard, to turn off the front airbag for infants 12 months old and younger who are restrained on the front passenger seat in child restraints that are listed in the Standard.
"Suppression" requires the front airbag on the passenger side to be turned off if:
- a child up to about one year of age is restrained on the front passenger seat in one of the rear-facing or forward-facing infant restraints listed in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 with which the Advanced Airbag System in your vehicle was certified. For a listing of the child restraints that were used to certify your vehicle's compliance with the US Safety Standard,
- When a person is detected on the front passenger seat that has an electrical capacitance that is more than the total electrical capacitance of a child that is about 1 year old restrained in one of the rear-facing or forward-facing infant restraints (listed in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 with which the Advanced Airbag System in your vehicle was certified), the front airbag on the passenger side may or may not deploy.
The PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF light comes on when the electronic control unit detects a total electrical capacitance on the front passenger seat that requires the front airbag to be turned off. If the PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF light does not come on, the front airbag on the passenger side has not been turned off by the control unit and can deploy if the control unit senses an impact that meets the conditions stored in its memory.
If the total electrical capacitance registered on the front passenger seat is more than that of a typical 1 year-old, but less than the weight of a small adult, the front airbag on the passenger side may deploy (the PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF light does not come on).
For example, the airbag may deploy if:
- a small child that is heavier than a typical 1 year-old child is on the front passenger seat (regardless of whether the child is in one of the child seats listed),
- a child who has outgrown child restraints is on the front passenger seat.
If the front passenger airbag is turned off, the PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF light in the center of the instrument panel will come on and stay on.
If the front passenger airbag deploys, the Federal Standard requires the airbag to meet the "low risk" deployment criteria to help reduce the risk of injury through interaction with the airbag.
"Low risk" deployment occurs in those crashes that take place at lower decelerations as defined in the electronic control unit.
Always remember: Even though your vehicle is equipped with Advanced Airbags, the safest place for children is properly restrained on the back seat. Please be sure to read the important information in the sections that follow and be sure to heed all of the WARNINGS.
WARNING
To reduce the risk of injury when an airbag inflates, always wear safety belts properly.
- If you are unrestrained, leaning forward, sitting sideways or out of position in any way, your risk of injury is much higher.
- You will also receive serious injuries and could even be killed if you are up against the airbag or too close to it when it inflates - even with an Advanced Airbag.
WARNING
A child in a rearward-facing child seat installed on the front passenger seat will be seriously injured and can be killed if the front airbag inflates - even with an Advanced Airbag System.
- Although the Advanced Airbag System in your vehicle is designed to turn off the front airbag when a rearward-facing child restraint has been installed on the front passenger seat, nobody can absolutely guarantee that deployment is impossible in all conceivable situations that may happen during the useful life of your vehicle.
- The inflating airbag will hit the child seat or infant carrier with great force and will smash the child seat and child against the backrest, center armrest, door, or roof.
- Always install rearward-facing child restraints on the rear seat.
- If you must install a rearward facing child seat on the front passenger seat because of exceptional circumstances and the PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF light does not come on and stay on, immediately install the rear-facing child seat in a rear seating position and have the airbag system inspected by your Audi dealer.
WARNING
If, in exceptional circumstances, you must install a forward-facing child restraint on the front passenger's seat:
- Always make sure the forward-facing seat has been designed and certified by its manufacturer for use on a front seat with a passenger front and side airbag.
- Never put the forward-facing child restraint up against or very near the instrument panel.
- Always move the front passenger seat to the highest position in the up and down adjustment range and move it back to the rearmost position in the seat's fore and aft adjustment range, as far away from the airbag as possible, before installing the forward- facing child restraint.
- Always make sure that the safety belt upper anchorage is behind the child restraint and not next to or in front of the child restraint so that the safety belt will be properly positioned.
- Always make sure that there is nothing on the front passenger seat that will cause the capacitive passenger detection system in the seat to signal to the Airbag System that the seat is occupied by a person when it is not, or to signal that it is occupied by someone who is heavier than the person actually sitting on the seat. The presence of additional objects could cause the passenger front airbag to be turned on when it should be off, or could cause the airbag to work in a way that is different from the way it would have worked without the object on the seat.
- Make sure that the PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF light comes on and stays on all the time whenever the ignition is switched on.
