Re: Safety

[Wolff <wolff_b@ix.netcom.com>]

> 
> > why you should replace your seatbelts after an accident. They are
> > designed to stretch and change your forward motion into heat in the belt
> > material and prevent you from decellerating to rapidly.
> Interesting...I never knew that they were actually designed to do something
> that complicated.  Would this suggest that replacing seatbelts after 5-10
> years would be a good idea?  How major does the accident have to be to
> warrant a replacement? (My car, when my mother was driving it, before I got
> it, went through 3 minor accidents, mostly people hitting my mother, car
> spun out once on ice, etc.)
> 
> Brett
> 
> ------
> Brett Dikeman
> dikemanb@stu.beloit.edu dikemanb@edison.ma.ultranet.com
> ~)-|
> Hostes alienigeni me abduxerunt.  Qui annus est?
> Te audire non possum.  Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
> ------

Don't know how major an accident this applies to, but it's certainly
worth asking for the money from the insureance company for the belts
even in a minor accident. I was told that you can look at the edges of
the belts at the little loops of nylon to tell if the loops had been
pulled into the webbing indicating that the belts had been stretched ,
but I think it would take an expert.
Wolff
P.S. Some Audis (my '91 200 tq for example) use cables attached to the
motor to tension the seatbelts in a crash. Some newer Audis (A8) use
explosives to do the same thing.