What if you were to hang a rug (relatively thick, but not bad) from a line and then drive into the carpet. How would the car notice the difference? Or would you just blow your pretensioners. airbags, etc?

 

If the rug was hanging low enough the PCS would see it and the brake assist would be in standby mode, the GS430 AVS would switch to sport mode and your electric seat belt pretensioners would activate and tighten your seatbelts. The airbags wouldn't open unless you hit something with sufficient force and had bumper excursion. Basically no harm would be done. One of our customers with an LS430 and PCS drove into his driveway a little too fast and when he approached the garage the PCS did everything I just described. Boy was he surprised but once he realized what happened everything was just fine.

 

yep, your active safety systems still work as before - still use same sensors as before, so even if you hit something, if the force is not sufficent, nothing will happen - sure your seat belts will tighten (not blow), your VDIM will be at alert mode for braking but nothing irreversible.