Volvo XC-90 dual roof airbag

[rmoore]

I discovered something interesting regarding the roof airbag system on Volvo's XC-90 SUV. We've known all along that the XC-90 was the first vehicle sold in the United States with roof airbags that did not and still does not has roof airbag IDs. No markings of any kind to indicate the presence of roof airbag systems.

Now, a new twist has come our way with the XC-90's roof airbags. Volvo Cars of North America, Inc publishes a free, downloadable document detailing a lot of critical information to know about Volvo vehicles and their airbag and safety systems. The document is titled "Bulletin for Emergency Personnel Attending Traffic Accidents" and can be found on Todd Hoffman's website
http://www.sceneoftheaccident.org/erg/volvoerg.pdf or within the service and parts section of Volvo's corporate website.

After studying the diagram on page 32 of the response guide, I noticed that the XC-90 is shown with a two-piece airbag system. I contacted a Senior Safety Engineer at Volvo and received word that in fact, the roof airbag is 2 pieces. For 7-seat models, there is a separate curtain....the little one is shown in the artwork on page 34 of the Volvo bulletin.

So what does that mean to us? Well, first there is no airbag ID for the roof airbags. so you might not even realize they are there. Secondly, when stripping the trim before cutting a roof pillar, the responder will have to expose the entire roofline in order to see both "pieces' of the 2-piece roof airbag system on the XC-90.

Final note; all roof pillars on the XC-90 are exotic metal; Boron-type steel. You probably won't be able to cut the roof pillars, the roof rail or any portion of the roof structure anyway!

[rmoore]

The URL for the downloadable bulletin from Volvo is available from the Volvo website at the following link. It is listed on the left side of the page.

https://www.volvotechinfo.com/index.cfm

It is the same document referenced on Todd Hoffman's sceneoftheaccident website.

[JorgHeck]

I also know some more cars that have more than one head impact airbags or more than one inflator per side. But I think they have at least one airbag ID per side.

For instance the Nissan Quest, Ford Freestyle, Landrover Discovery, BMW X5 (always the latest models).

This is a good reminder that you should strip the trim even if you've found an inflator. It is not important to find the inflator(s) at all, it's only important to know that it is not where we want to cut...