GMC Terrain 2025 - How Does an Airbag Restrain; What will You See after an Airbag Inflates

GMC Terrain/Terrain Denali Owner Manual (GMNA-Localizing-U.S./Canada/Mexico-18552429) - 2025
Seats and Restraints 51
For a
irbag locations, see W
here Are the Airbags?
348.
How Does an Airbag Restrain?
In moderate to severe frontal collisions, even
belted occupants can contact the steering
wheel or the instrument panel. In moderate to
severe side collisions, even belted occupants
can contact the inside of the vehicle.
Airbags supplement the protection provided
by seat belts by distributing the force of the
impact more evenly over the occupant's body.
Rollover capable roof-rail airbags are designed
to help contain the head and chest of occupants
in the outboard seating positions in the first
and second rows. The rollover capable roof-
rail airbags are designed to help reduce the
risk of full or partial ejection in rollover
events, although no system can prevent all
such ejections.
But airbags would not help in many types
of collisions, primarily because the occupant's
motion is not toward those airbags. See When
Should an Airbag Inflate? 350.
Airbags should never be regarded as anything
more than asupplement to seat belts.
What Will You See After an Airbag
In
flates?
After frontal and seat-mounted side impact
airbags inflate, they quickly deflate, so quickly
that some people may not even realize the
airbags inflated. Roof-rail airbags may still be at
least partially inflated for some time after they
inflate. Some components of the airbag module
may be hot for several minutes. For location of
the airbags, see Where Are the Airbags? 348.
The parts of the airbag that come into contact
with you may be warm, but not too hot to
touch. There may be some smoke and dust
coming from the vents in the deflated airbags.
Airbag inflation does not prevent people from
leaving the vehicle.
{ Warning
When an airbag inflates, there may be dust
i
n the air. This dust could cause breathing
problems for people with ahistory of
asthma or other breathing trouble. To avoid
this, everyone in the vehicle should get
out as soon as it is safe to do so. If you
(Continued)
Warning (Continued)
have breathing problems but cannot get
out of the vehicle after an airbag inflates,
then get fresh air by opening awindow
or adoor. If you experience breathing
problems following an airbag deployment,
you should seek medical attention.
The vehicle has afeature that may
au
tomatically unlock the doors, turn on the
interior lamps and hazard warning flashers,
and shut off the fuel system after the airbags
inflate. The feature may also activate, without
airbag inflation, after an event that exceeds
apredetermined threshold. After turning the
vehicle off and then on again, the fuel system
will return to normal operation; the doors can
be locked, the interior lamps can be turned off,
and the hazard warning flashers can be turned
off using the controls for those features. If any
of these systems are damaged in the crash they
may not operate as normal.