When I was thinking of this New Years trip to the river bottom, And referenced myself to the awesome wall climb I did and the abrupt bunny hop stop at the top.
I came to realize how the day would have ended real quick when the safety devices could have been deployed.
The Q. goes out air bags or no air bags.
I have two Jeeps. The Wrangler is the ORV I'm talking about but it is street legal and I do drive it to work on occasion to resolve problems.

Is this a sore subject or a dumb question.
To me it is one of those things that I would hate to get rid of,if not needed. But if it is going to go off on me unexpectedly it's going. I don't know how it is operated except for a hard frontal impact. Besides with the new Warn bumper attached to the frame I don't think it will operate seeing that it don't move at all.

Steve all of them that I know of have sort of a pendelum that can swing in a hard frontal stop.. The vehicle crashes and the device swings 1/2 inch or so and triggers the bags which fill before the occupant moves forward 3 inches..
I am not aware of a Jeeper having his bags go off while offroad.. I am sure it has happened and is possible to happen but I'd suspect the Jeeper involved was happy to have the protection.
Others may have more experiences with bags going off...but since nobody has responded my guess is they don't go off much if at all offroading..
Big Jim <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

X2 on BigJims answer, I've "slammed" into things offroad pretty hard and have not set off the airbags (I even have a mangled ARB front bumper to show for it, HA). There is a sensor that detects sudden deceleration like BigJim states (like in the form of a crash or something similar...)

Fred R.

My XJ just has 2 fuses marked "Airbags" on the fuse box by the passenger's feet. I always just pull them out when i stop to air down and disconnect the swaybar. Just to play it on the safe side

That's what I feel needs to be done just for off road. They are there for a safety reason, but I know that when they go off, they can mess you up sometimes worse than the accident would've.
My Jeep is to new to go and start doing major extractions that are not incidents (trail wounds).
I will look for the fuses today.
Thanks for the replies, guys. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Unless you're doing your wheeling WAY to fast, I'd leave them alone. You can hit stuff really hard w/out them going off. Never heard of one going on the trail even in a rollover. If you nose dive off a ledge I suspect you'll be glad they're active.

I have hit pretty hard on my front bumper from droping off of a ledge. the air bags did not deploy even though I still have the factory plastic bumper. the empact was hard enough to push the "crush cans" in a litttle but not enough to make the bags deploy. you should be fine by leaving them how they are.

That is what the crush cans are there for...so minor impacts don't set the bags off.

The crush cans left the truck way before the first piece of turkey was a thought in anybodies head. The Warn bumpers are mounted as they should be, to the frame. That would make for any hit a hard one.
The thought of the two things together (airbags, hard mounted bumpers) kinda freaked me out. Even after I knew that me and my freind made it. Still a fun day.
Don't want to find some one with a broken nose or black eye over a hard imact due to over protection.
<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/mrt.gif" alt="" />