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Originally Posted by SDP So it was painful to witness the mindless Mahindra bashing (and even Tata in some posts) which has been going on, which is almost similar to the mob-violence that is so common nowadays.. just a sophisticated, polished-English version of it. There is no first-person account of what exactly happened. There has been no investigation (by police) about the accident itself (at least nothing shared on the thread) and no investigation (by manufacturer or any independent body) of the car involved to understand the reasons behind what happened. In that case, I fail to understand why so many well-educated and knowledgeable members jumped to the conclusion, putting the blame squarely on the car and the manufacturer. |
With due respect, blaming the manufacturer is evident & natural here because the product was manufactured by him. Who else to blame? The road divider? Roadside tree? Reckless oncoming driver?
I equally fail to understand here why a well respected, knowledgeable mod like you would go on in length justifying the manufacturer!
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Originally Posted by SDP I am not an expert in this area and have commented on neither the cause of the accident nor the air-bag deployment failure as I consider it irresponsible to comment on something without having some depth in the area and having a complete understanding of what happened. |
It's not deep understanding or being an expert that is needed here, deep understanding is needed to design an airbag sensor or airbag itself. To comprehend if the airbags should have deployed or not in this example by looking at the pictures posted, one needs some common sense and a bit of google.
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Originally Posted by SDP Instead, I chose to reach out to someone who has the domain experience and sought some insights which have been shared verbatim some 2-3 posts above this. |
Could you share further details about this person please (I am not sure if you have already shared, apologies)? What if he is from the Social Media team of Mahindra?
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Originally Posted by SDP When I saw the accident car pics for the first time, even I thought that at least some airbags should have deployed. In fact, I would have preferred if all airbags would have deployed providing some protection to the accident victim. |
It's not what you prefer, or what i prefer, it's in ideal scenario what should have happened.
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Originally Posted by SDP But, please note that the car is a machine and it works as per how it is designed and not as per what you and me would have liked or preferred it to behave. |
If it is designed this way, I would say it is half baked without any proper tests or simulations.
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Originally Posted by SDP Are there any pointers to how the airbags in the XUV are designed to behave? Yes, just have a look at sandeepmdas's post and pics of owner's manual in this post. Hasn't the manufacturer clearly stated that in case of a frontal impact from a tree or a pole, the airbags would not deploy? Look at the pic of the damage to the cross-member behind the front-bumper. The impact is exactly in the center just like a impact from a tree/pole. If the car is designed that way and it is explicitly stated in the owner's manual, why are so many on this thread expecting the car to behave any other way? Sanjeev has pointed out a clearly visible un-bent crumple-zone bar on the driver's side door. Whether you or me like it or not, a severe impact to that bar is necessary for deployment of the side airbags. That's the way the machine is designed to work and I am pretty sure that's the way it works across the industry. Just in case you are not aware, please note that Mahindras (or for that matter any car manufacturer) doesn't design/manufacture airbags. Airbag modules are sourced from a handful of suppliers globally and I don't believe the car manufacturer would be allowed to implement/configure them in their cars in whichever way they want. The airbag supplier would disown any accountability in that case. |
You said you're not an expert. But looking at the above statements, it looks like you (or Sanjeev) were involved in the airbag design here.
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Originally Posted by SDP Even if we assume that in Arvind's case the airbags should have deployed and they didn't due to a malfunction, how does one ascertain whether this is an isolated incident or an issue with specific batches or a fundamental design flaw with the model? Without any investigation, how and why did some members jumped to the conclusions - "are airbags really installed in the XUV?", "all XUVs are unsafe" and even "all Mahindra vehicles are unsafe"? Frankly, very disappointing! Was expecting better from the members of this respected forum. |
Exactly, if the airbags did not deploy during an accident of this magnitude (again, going by the pictures posted here), they probably can do away with airbag gimmicks and stop projecting XUV to be a safer car. It's very disappointing that we have people who justify the Manufacturer here.
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Originally Posted by SDP The Mahindra statement talks about 7000 airbags consumed at dealerships. That means keeping aside the totaled vehicles (which would go to scrap mostly), there have been 7000 XUVs in which the airbags did deploy and were replaced as part of repairs. No idea how many XUVs have been in severe accidents and how many were totaled, but given that the total number of XUVs is about 2.19 lakh, isn't the 7000 number large enough to consider before members come to any sort of the conclusions about the safety of the XUV in general and probability of airbag deployment in particular?
How many here are aware of the ANCAP crash test rating for the XUV5OO? If you are not, please search on YouTube. A certification from an independent international third-party agency which specializes in the domain. Why are so many members ready to ignore that and claim that the XUV is a Indian jugaad vehicle?
Its time to keep your biases and prejudices aside and look at this case objectively.
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Front airbags by definition are supposed to be triggered by a direct impact to the front. So what do you call it when the front airbags deploy in a side-impact scenario like what happened with tbhpian bking's Ford? Sorry for possibly jumping the gun (without having the complete details), but the word that comes to my mind is - malfunction.
Please understand that sensors are sophisticated pieces of hardware and don't come cheap. Anybody who has replaced any kind of sensor in any car and paid for it, would be able to relate to that comment. Yes, the manufacturer can design a car with sensors next to each other like a LED strip and have multiple of those sensor strips running all along the car's exteriors. But I don't believe its a realistic design approach given that every product is built to a cost. Are there other vehicles in the same segment which has more sensors than the XUV? I don't know. Knowledgeable members can possibly answer that. |
If as a manufacturer, you get 4 stars out of 5 in one of the crash tests, and the airbags do not deploy during the need, what is the point in having that score or the airbag? Probably the rating would only help in increasing the sales by projecting the vehicle as safe to the gullible customers. Please, for gods sake, stop justifying the manufacturer as there's a precious life fighting between life and death due to whatever failed algorithm, chip, sensor, airbag etc. The blame would 100% go to the manufacturer. And the reply that they have posted on some of the websites with respect to this incident is a total hogwash (nothing more than some canned notes). If you see their response, it is clear that they seem to be in no way taking any responsibility whatsoever with respect to the failure, apart from sympathizing with the victim.
Moreover, Mahindra is not doing any social service by installing airbags in XUV. If the Chips/sensors are costly the cost is passed on to the end user/s & not borne by the manufacturer. Here the real issue is projecting something to be safe by no way of proper calibration and charging premium for a half baked product & marketing it as premium.
Today it's Arvaind / his son. Tomorrow it can be someone else. The onus lies with the manufacturer to find out what went wrong and get it corrected rather than just shying away from the incident without proper response, thus risking the lives of many more in future.
We all love our cars, but let that not blind us from seeing the evident incompetence of the product.
Apologies if I sounded harsh, I have nothing against the manufacturer, nor you, just want the XUV to be a safer car.