***Originally posted in technical matters - moved here due to lack of response!***
Hi,
My father was recently hit from behind on a motorway, and I was wondering if anyone else had any experience with BMW's 5-series in this situation.
The car that hit him was doing about 70mph, whilst he was doing about 30mph. On impact, the drivers seat was thrown backwards, as the bolts that held the front of the seat to the rails broke. The result was that he was left facing the ceiling of the car, trying to brake to avoid hitting anyone in front of him.
The car was an R-registered 520i. He has pursued the issue with BMW UK, and after much correspondance they have returned a verdict, (without having examined the seat), that there is no problem with the seat doing this.
This is not a BMW-bashing attempt - I am just trying to find out if there are other people out there who have experienced such a reaction in a crash, with this particular car.
Thanks,
Stuart
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Stuart
Haven't got any personal experience of this but I wouldn't have thought that it would be 'normal' for the seat to sheer off as described. Certainly being hit from the rear the forces would be reversed to the normal sort of crash test dummy type tests you see on the box but I would have thought that there must be some standard applied. IIRC seat mountings used to be part of the MOT test, I presume they still are although I can't remember the last time I noticed the tester looking.
Sorry these are only general observations but I, like you, find it a little disturbing that this could happen fairly easily.
You don't mention but I hope your father was OK.
Cockle
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Stuart
Just another thought, always being a believer in asking the experts, would it be worth a call to your local Fire & Rescue people? After all they probably see more wrecks than anyone else and more often than not have to cut the vehicles apart so they would have a pretty good idea of what to normally expect in various different types of shunt.
Cockle
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If it was my car,I would have a metallurgical examination of the bolts-assuming they are still available & then start talking to the manufacturers.Cockles advice above is an excellent starting point.
Simon T.
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Just another thought, always being a believer in asking the experts, would it be worth a call to your local Fire & Rescue people?
Brilliant idea! I was reshelling a 205GTi and a fireman neighbour stopped and told us all about it's Plastic Fuel tank.
Sure enough it was plastic. Seemed logical - he had real incentive to know these things!
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Parp, Parp!
Note: All Toad posts come with an implied smiley.
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My view is that this should not happen. All cars use high tensile bolts to hold front seats in and the mountings are subject to severe load tests during homologation. All car safety is geared around holding the occupant in place during an accident whilst the car structure deforms around him - airbags then cushion him from contact with the moving structure.
Are you a member of the RAC or AA? Contact their technical departments for advice. You could also try contacting the Vehicle Certification Agency - this is the body that witnesses tests and certifies cars homologated in the UK. I've no idea how they respond to enquiries from the public.
I will ask around at work for you for some opinions - if anything valuable comes up I'll contact you (I work for one of the worlds largest auto seat suppliers, but we don't supply the BMW5).
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Many thanks for the responses so far. I will try and respond to a couple of the points made above.
Firstly, I forgot to mention that we had the seat and car looked at by an independent crash specialist, who said that he had never seen anything of a similar nature before. This confirms that this sort of thing is certainly not standard in an accident.
There are some good suggestions for contacts in these messages, which I will pass on to my father to follow up.
Cyd, any further information you could provide from your perspective would be very much appreciated.
Does anyone have any opinions on sending the seat to BMW? I have read on these pages recently that evidence can go "missing" if it is important, and this is the main reason we have not sent it back so far (and also that BMW want us to pay for postage!). Unfortunately this seems like the only route left, beyond legal action.
The only other option was to contact the motoring press, but again, I'm not sure what benefit this would have. All the evidence seems to suggest that this is a potential problem with the car, but does anyone have suggestions as to the best way to progress?
BTW, on the subject of injury, my father is still suffering from back pain from the accident, and he had internal bruising for some time afterwards. Could have been a lot worse though, which is the worrying thing about this.
Thanks again,
Stuart
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Stuart,
A local guy succesfully sued one of the big american companies last year for a similar incident in a big 4x4 truck.
I recall at the time that this was hailed as a landmark case - unfortunately, I can't find any details via the web, but I've emailed the string of threads to a bloke at a local car magazine, who will see if he can dig things out for you.
Regards,
ICT
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Does anyone have any opinions on sending the seat to BMW? I have read on these pages recently that evidence can go "missing" if it is important, and this is the main reason we have not sent it back so far (and also that BMW want us to pay for postage!). Unfortunately this seems like the only route left, beyond legal action.
I agree that with others and not send the seat to BMW. They already seem to have gone into denial mode! I suppose if too many people have this then there would be both an expensive recll and also bad PR. Having said that if there was a fault like this with the model then the NCAP tests should have picked it up - maybe just a bad batch of bolts.
Have you contacted Health & Safety as I think that this is an important issue, especially as I drive a 5 series. Would love to know any outcome
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ICT - excellent, would love to hear about that case as it sounds like it could be useful, even just from a leverage point of view.
CM - no contact wioth H&S Executive yet, although it is another good idea. I will try to post any relevant events on this thread, for other interested 5-series owners.
Thanks again...
Stuart
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if there was a fault like this with the model then the NCAP tests should have picked it up - maybe just a bad batch of bolts. Have you contacted Health & Safety as I think that this is an important issue, especially as I drive a 5 series. Would love to know any outcome
I prepare to be corrected, but I don't think there is an NCAP rear-end crash test.
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Stuart, I have cut/paste this into a local forum - hopefully somebody here can assist you. I'll keep you posted.
ICT
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Contact BMW HQ in Germay in tell them of the problem and what you are planning on doing, including referring them to the discussion on this site. Their response and its speed may well amaze you.
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Further to yesterdays posting:
Stuart,
Your query raises a lot of questions and there are an awful lot of variables to be taken into account. Anyway here goes:
To find out if anyone else has similar experiences I would suggest that your best source of information is NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) in the USA. We do not have the same legal framework here for recalls or similar actions. Here this is all voluntary, whereas in USA NHTSA have legal powers and can force a manufacturer to make a recall or
even remove the car from market as a result of complaints from the public and NHTSAs own investigations. I have a contact at NHTSA who is in the Office of Crashworthiness Standards - he will be able to tell you where you should direct your query. Send me an email and I will return his details to you (to get my email click on my name in red above and my profile will pop
up). Bear in mind that the USA is BMWs largest market.
Do try getting in touch with the VCA here as well. I don't have any contacts there but they do have a website so use that as a way in.
The legal requirement for rear impact is 33mph HyGE test and rear impact with a barrier at 38km/h. There are also other static loading requirements for seats, seat belts and their mountings. These are quite severe.
The legal crash is into concrete, so the crashed car absorbs the whole energy of impact. In your fathers case the crash was dynamic, involving two vehicles which would have shared the energy of impact between them. You give a speed differential of just 40mph - the opinion in the office was that the seat should not have given way in the manner you describe.
Given that the seat did give way, there is another possibility. That the car which hit your father was doing considerably more than 70mph.
The failure mode your father experienced is of great concern because he would have lost control of the car and is also no longer restrained in the vehicle. Had he suffered a secondary impact (into the central barrier for example) he would have been tossed around like a rag doll. A secondary impact could well have been fatal.
If the Police were involved, see if you can find out their
assessment of the speed of the impacting vehicle.
Tell your insurance company you are concerned about the crash
performance of the car and you would like it inspected. A lot of other things should have happened before the seat mounts give way (seat frame deformation, floor pan deformation). They will probably take it up through the insurance industry research arm at Thatcham.
Irrespective of the insurance company position, consider having the vehicle looked at by an engineer (contact the RAC or AA). Consider contacting Auto Express - they have a consumer section that deals with all sorts of problems (buy a mag - it's near the back usually).
If your father suffered any injury he will be entitled to make an injury claim against the third party regardless of the issue over the cars performance.
Ask BMW UK to make available data showing compliance with rear impact regulations (ECE 32 and ECE 17 in Europe). In the USA this information is public access - don't know if that's true here (FMVSS 207 and 208 in the USA). Ask BMW UK if BMW GMBH have a crash investigation department - if so, ask to be put in touch (Saab do this in Sweden).
Bear in mind that there are a lot of factors involved. Your fathers accident may well have been significantly more severe than the legal tests require. Also is he a big bloke? this has a significant effect on the seat loads. You also do not state what kind of vehicle hit him. Has the seat ever been removed? The list goes on and on and on........
Contact a solicitor who specialises in this area.
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Cyd,
Wow, that's a lot of information! All of what you suggest sounds very useful, and it certainly gives us some more concrete ideas for how to move forward.
I very much appreciate the time you have taken to find out and relay this information. I will be sure to return to the forum and post any information as the case goes on.
Many thanks again.
Stuart
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