Buick Encore: Airbag System / How Does an Airbag Restrain?

Buick Encore 2020-2026 Owner's Manual / Seats and Restraints / Airbag System / How Does an Airbag Restrain?

In moderate to severe frontal or near frontal collisions, even belted occupants can contact the steering wheel or the instrument panel. In moderate to severe side collisions, even belted occupants can contact the inside of the vehicle.

Airbags supplement the protection provided by seat belts by distributing the force of the impact more evenly over the occupant's body.

Rollover capable roof-rail airbags are designed to help contain the head and chest of occupants in the outboard seating positions in the first and second rows. The rollover capable roof-rail airbags are designed to help reduce the risk of full or partial ejection in rollover events, although no system can prevent all such ejections.

But airbags would not help in many types of collisions, primarily because the occupant's motion is not toward those airbags. See When Should an Airbag Inflate?.

Airbags should never be regarded as anything more than a supplement to seat belts.

What Makes an Airbag Inflate?

In a deployment event, the sensing system sends an electrical signal triggering a release of gas from the inflator. Gas from the inflator fills the airbag causing the bag to break out of the cover...

What Will You See after an Airbag Inflates?

After the frontal, knee (if equipped), and seat-mounted side impact airbags inflate, they quickly deflate, so quickly that some people may not even realize the airbags inflated...

Other information:

Buick Encore 2020-2026 Owner's Manual: Dolly Towing (Front-Wheel-Drive Vehicles Only)

To tow a front-wheel-drive vehicle from the front with two wheels on the ground: Put the front wheels on a dolly. Move the shift lever to P (Park). Set the parking brake. Clamp the steering wheel in a straight-ahead position with a clamping device designed for towing...

Buick Encore 2020-2026 Owner's Manual: Automatic Headlamp System

When it is dark enough outside and the exterior lamp control is in the automatic position, the headlamps come on automatically. See Exterior Lamp Controls. The vehicle has a light sensor on top of the instrument panel. Make sure it is not covered, or the headlamps will be on when they are not needed...