TENS cables(important safety item)

[Sean Upchurch]

My wife has first hand knowledge of the TENS cables and their benefits.
Back in Feb. my wife got into a wreck with our 200 and hit a cement barrier
head on going about 30-40mph and walked away without a scratch or burn from
the seatbelt, well she did have a bloody nose from the airbag but you cannot
stop the head unless you use something like the HANS system the roundy-round
(NASCAR) guys use.  I have seen other people in other cars have burns across
their shoulder that the seatbelt gave them when it stopped them after they
were traveling forward but the TENS cables in our car did their job in
keeping my wife firmly planted in the seat and not giving her a chance to
get moving forward.  I did not know they even existed and was curious as to
why she did not have any of the tell-tale signs of a front end collision
until someone told me about the cables.  Who knows, she might have walked
away without them properly installed but I would not use her or myself as a
guinea pig in that kind of test.  My $.02.

Sean Upchurch
87 4ktq
91 200 20v-parting out
Bellevue, WA

-----Original Message-----
From: 200q20v-admin at audifans.com [mailto:200q20v-admin at audifans.com]On
Behalf Of Brett Dikeman
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 8:17 AM
To: 200q20v at audifans.com
Subject: TENS cables(important safety item)

Justin's email reminded me about something I've been meaning to post about.

Folks should check theirs if they can to make sure the TENS cable is
in place.  My mechanic found that for some reason, most of the
connectors to the tranny were cut and then scotch-locked, AND the
TENS cable had been zip-tied up and out of the way, not around the
bracket on the tranny.  Cute, etc?  Talk about cutting corners when
doing a clutch job(or worse, if the tranny was replaced.)

The TENS system is a pretty important safety feature, so I'd
recommend people check to make sure the cable wasn't left unattached
by a lazy(or incompetent) mechanic.  For those who don't know, TENS
is a mechanical seatbelt pretensioner system; if the engine+tranny
get pushed back, a bracket on the tranny yanks the cable, and that
tightens the 2 front seatbelts.  The bracket might be a little hard
to see with all the stuff in the way, but look along the top surface
of the tranny with a flashlight...it shouldn't be -too- hard to miss.
I'll see if maybe I can get a picture of it some time...

Brett
--
----
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/
_______________________________________________
200q20v mailing list
200q20v at audifans.com
http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/200q20v