after market steering wheel on S2K

[garett]

hey guys

im thinking along the lines of changing the wheel in my s2

this is the first car I have owned with a driver side airbag and its the only thing im concerned with with removing the steering wheel.

I want to get a suede personal 330mm with red stitch to suit some of the other suede bits in my interior

anyone changed their wheels over? is there a special type of bosskit / airbag delete or anything i should know about?

[dlai5552]

You should buy the works bell boss kit! It comes with the srs delete resistor.
Otherwise just any other boss kits really if you don't mind about the srs delete.

http://www.gotuning.com/product_info.php?fPath=S2000_29&products_id=828

Should cost around $120 shipped I think.

[vyets]

or do the good old pull out the bulb trick haha

[zhong]

^^^ hahah problem solved.

[Si1enzio]

You can buy a resister & bypass the SRS. Theres a thread on s2ki that shows you how to do it.

[greek_rambos2k]

isnt it illegal to take an airbag out of a car?

[dlai5552]

^ isn't any mods illegal :P

[9large]

Obviously it's your car and you can do whatever you like with it, but if I were to change my steering wheel to one without an air bag, I'd make sure I've also got a proper seat with a 4+ point harness. Otherwise, in a head-on collision I'd risk having my head trisected by the steering wheel.

[AusS2000]

Safety ain't cool!

[9large]

Absolutely over-rated!

[AusS2000]

I went out shopping for a secondhand car with a buddy of mine last week. He asked how you can know if airbags are working or not. I said you drive really fast into a brick wall. You'll know pretty quick if they are working.

[9large]

Boom-boom-tish! And therein lies the irony.

[LEWD]

Obviously it's your car and you can do whatever you like with it, but if I were to change my steering wheel to one without an air bag, I'd make sure I've also got a proper seat with a 4+ point harness. Otherwise, in a head-on collision I'd risk having my head trisected by the steering wheel.

Yeah because that's what happened to everyone in the first 90 years of motoring when they had accidents....

[AusS2000]

Umm, enough that they figured putting an exploding bag in front of you was a good idea.

[9large]

Yeah because that's what happened to everyone in the first 90 years of motoring when they had accidents....

I don't think there's any need for the sarcasm, but your logic is flawed. I think Aus puts it well.

I don't understand why something so obvious needs to be spelt out, but for those who like facts and figures:

- The US National Highway and Transport Safety Association (NHTSA) estimates that, as of January 2009, 28,000 US lives were saved from the use of a frontal airbag -- an attributable reduction of 29% in fatalities.
[source: http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/airbags.html]

- A study conducted in 2001 covering New York State found that you are 7 times more likely to receive a facial injury without the use of a frontal airbag.
[source: http://archotol.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/127/10/1189.pdf]


And for those who like to see what airbags do, these are 64kph Euro NCAP frontal crashes:

(notice how far the head flies forward and where it would land)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95iXpIK8Jh8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5H1lGKKNrE

[garett]

9large, that footage makes me reconsider for sure.

[9large]

No worries garett. Yeh, all I'm trying to say is that if you do get an aftermarket steering, get a decent racing seat and harness to go with it :thumbsup: Not sure how that'd go down with the authorities, but it's a better setup.

[9large]

Here's a crash test video of a VW, without an airbag:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJzfqc5niVg

[LEWD]

I don't think there's any need for the sarcasm, but your logic is flawed. I think Aus puts it well.

I don't understand why something so obvious needs to be spelt out, but for those who like facts and figures:



My response was due to your over dramatic 'trisection' of your head comment, not that airbags don’t work. But if you actually did want to know how much airbags save lives, read into it as road safety is actually a very interesting topic. The 29% figure and 28,000 people figures are all well and good and look great as headlines, but if you delve slightly deeper you will see that solely using crash statistics to come up with figures is the close equivalent of my nonchalant comment I posted earlier.

The statistical drop in fatalities that is trumpeted to be due to airbags in your links is affected greatly by the state by state compulsory seat belt laws in the US over the same time and the difficulty of clearly setting out if someone was saved by the airbag or the seat belt. Interesting reading is the following paper from 2001 -

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittPorter2001.pdf (http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittPorter2001.pdf)

To quote and paraphrase "We found that wearing a seat belt reduced the chance of death by 60-70 percent across all crashes. We estimated that air bags reduce the death rate by 15 percent in frontal crashes, but don’t help in partial frontal, side, or rear crashes."

Interesting and funny in a dark way is that drunk drivers are 7-10% less likely to die in accidents than sober drivers as they generally don't see the accident about to occur and therefore don't tense up and stiffly hold onto the steering wheel. Therefore statistics show that airbags are a 5-8% better overall at saving your life than driving after drinking a bottle of vodka (obviously ignoring the fact that drinking a bottle of vodka will probably increase your chance of an accident in the first place by a massive amount).

By the way, in no way am I saying that airbags are not needed, the more safety features the better. I have lost 3 friends (including my girlfriend at the time) due to car accidents that would have been avoidable if only for better driver training and in one case, better roads. The cars had airbags and seatbelts, but they are only there when you have the accident

Herein lies my problem, passive safety features unfortunately lull us into a false sense of security, it is easier for a government to mandate such features (and past on the cost to the driver) than to actually spend money on ensuring our roads are in good condition and that the people that receive licenses actually have the ability to drive in emergency situations.
The risk of having an accident is not lowered by you having an airbag, it could actually be argued that having all these safety systems will increase your chance of an accident. You can lower you risk of death or injury by being a better driver, not driving like an idiot and governments ensuring roads are in better condition. If someone were to refuse to drive a car because it didn’t have an airbag fitted, I would never be a passenger in their car, to me it says that they have a very high expectation of an accident, I’d rather not be in one thanks.
Massively off topic I know, but having read quite a bit on road safety over the years, I don’t mind having the odd chat about it.

Back on topic though, someone suggested that if you did change the wheel to wear a harness, I would suggest not to, not only is it illegal (at least in Vic), but if fitted correctly (no slack) it impairs your side and back vision greatly as you cannot move your shoulders to move your head and in traffic it is downright dangerous.

[9large]

My reference to "trisection" was an attempt at humour; it now seems a bad one. Maybe I should have said, your head will come into contact with part of the car - probably the steering wheel in a frontal impact.

I don't disagree with what you've essentially written, but there are some political issues at play in your argument. I don't disagree with your last paragraph either, but as I tried to say in diplomatic and a less confronting way in my first post of this thread, it's his car and he can do what he likes to it - break the law or otherwise. Most of the cars on these forums appear to have something illegal about them.

[garett]

decided to keep my face should I come into an accident.

[AusS2000]

I think the facts are all out in the open here. Now it's just a case of bruised egos.

Steering wheel airbags are a safety device. They help cushion you in the case of a frontal collision. They won't help you in the case of a side impact, or if you are walking down the street and trip on a loose peace of pavement, but they are definitely a plus.

If you car doesn't have one, my advice is avoid frontal impacts. Actually that's my advice even if you do have one.

If you do have one I don't suggest you remove it. Particularly if you are a model and rely on your good looks for your income. If you're an ugly mug you might weigh this up against the 'coolness' factor and decide differently but I've never heard of anyone who got laid with the pick up line 'Hey, wanna see my Nardi steering wheel'?

[LEWD]

My reference to "trisection" was an attempt at humour; it now seems a bad one. Maybe I should have said, your head will come into contact with part of the car - probably the steering wheel in a frontal impact.

I don't disagree with what you've essentially written, but there are some political issues at play in your argument. I don't disagree with your last paragraph either, but as I tried to say in diplomatic and a less confronting way in my first post of this thread, it's his car and he can do what he likes to it - break the law or otherwise. Most of the cars on these forums appear to have something illegal about them.

The funny thing is that your head will probably come in contact with the steering wheel when you go to remove it as they are notoriously difficult to take off!

Personally I dont think the S2000 steering wheel is too big or ugly enough to remove, I agree its personal choice, but unless you are using it on the track and need a suede item to interact with your gloves, its a pointless mod. But again, personal choice.

As for the politics....best leave that alone as I'll start ranting all over again. :wave: