Don't take airbag for granted

I bought an I10 in June 2008. Ever since I bought my I10, I have been having problems with it. Changing gear from second to first is very very hard. The service people have taken the car for servicing more than a few times to fix this problem unsuccessfully. Three weeks back I met with an accident wherein a lady hit my car headon overtaking another vehicle. I saw the car and braked and my car had come to a complete stop when the other car hit me. The other car must have been traveling around 15-20km/hr. I had a damage worth 58K rupees. However my biggest issue was the airbag never deployed even though there was a major impact (I had to get my radiator, condensor and fan replaced) and a head on collision. However the sensor which was supposed to help trigger the airbags broke and I had to shell out 12K rupees (50% had to be borne by the insurance) total cost of the sensor is 23K rupees. I spoke to the Hyundai area manager (South) and he gave me the technical jargon that the car has to be hit at a particular angle and has to be decelerating at a particular speed etc etc for the airbag to deploy (remember my car had come to a complete stop). To me it did not make any sense. Then he started quoting the international certification they have got for the airbags. I was comparing I10 and Maruti Swift and the only reason I went in was due to the airbags in I10. Now I think I made the wrong decision. You be the judge on whether the airbag in I10 is useful.

-Balaji

reasonable fuel economy, easy parkingpoor safety features, poor service, gear box problems.