Airbags expire? My first car will be 13 years old, and it'll be nice to know if i am driving round protected by airbags. When they do, does the light come on? (SRS light)
Warranty on them expires, yes. I don't think lights would turn on, as they are used for malfunctions.
Normally that's how you make airbags, but that's apparently not the case with the ones made by Takata. Another thing that's really bad about it, is the fact that they flatout lied about the test results of the airbags. IIRC, they had a couple of airbag failures, but refused to report it, so therefore the issues didn't show up on their test results. I've also heard something about the airbags being stored in humid areas in Mexico. Didn't fully understand what they meant by that.
Modern airbags don't expire, at least not in 13 years. Airbags made before early 90s should be replaced every 15 years, but newer ones are designed to last a lifetime. In the 1990s, GM bought an old, rusty 1972 Chevrolet with most equipment malfunctioning, crashed it - and the airbag worked. And modern ones are, of course, much better. And no, if the airbag in your 70s-80s vehicle expires, you don't get any notice. But most of them have stickers saying "Replace airbags every x years" somewhere.
In fact, Takata tested their airbags, found out they were defective, but didn't make any improvements and told their employees to terminate all info about the tests' results. --- Post updated --- Certain components of Takata airbags deteriorate when exposed to humidity.
This is why we can't have nice things. I freaking hate crossovers, they need to die, stop with the crossovers, stop with the crossovers, stop with the crossovers.
No lights. At 13, yours are likely fucked. The light can only detect electronic failure. But the rubber used in airbags and the propellent itself has a limited shelf life. Propellent will be less effective and the rubber may fail to hold pressure of inflation and simply rupture before the airbag had fully deployed
Certainly not. https://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/do-car-airbags-expire.html https://www.autotrader.com/car-shopping/do-airbags-need-to-be-replaced-at-a-certain-age-245010 https://thelemonlawattorneys.com/blog/do-airbags-expire/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8078919/Out-of-date-airbags-should-not-need-replacing.html
Live through multiple car wrecks that involve airbag deployment and tell me that again. I've seen less than 50% successful deployment in vehicles 10 or older, and in all cases its been either torn bags or failure to fully ignite in the first place, all vehicles newer than the supposed don't worry date --- Post updated --- Hell, the propellent in my ford focus airbag manufactured around year 2000, continued to smoulder for the following 5-10 minutes after the airbag failed to deeply. Of the 4 airbags on that car, all 4 failed --- Post updated --- 2004 VW Polo brother owned, 4 airbags again, only 1 successfully deployed, all others had evidence of being activated (swollen housings etc) but didn't deploy --- Post updated --- 2004 Corsa, side impact, SRS airbag on driver's seat only failed to fill deploy, ruptured/decayed rubber. My experience from living through multiple collisions is that airbags expire, contrary to manufacturer claims that they cannot
I've seen a lot of crash tests of old cars (up to early 90s) where airbags deploy correctly (yes the tests were made when the cars were old, I'm not that stupid). Could they have replaced the airbags before testing? Otherwise it is hard to explain the bad luck pursuing you and your friends. You sure these cars didn't have counterfeit airbags installed somehow?
Counterfeit airbags, pretty absurd don't ya think. it's easy to explain the bad luck, very very easy, rubber has a shelf life, explosive compounds have a shelf life. The only improvement in shelf life in the articles you link was in one moisture seal, great, but moisture eats most thin rubbers, causes them to harden and crack. I've seen the failures with my own eyes with bags newer than any of those resources suggest should be ok. It's pretty ludicrous that vehicles bought from all sorts of places would all be have counterfeit airbags, and 2 of those 3 vehicles mentioned were mine, the 3rd was my brother's. I even had photos before of the failures, some are even posted on this forum. Basic material science, everything has shelf life. You'll notice that most crash test vehicles are in new condition, it's not unreasonable to suggest they've had replacement parts to indicate how the vehicle should function new. Also been and spoken with the automotive team at work, they've all seen what I've described, airbags failing from as little as 8 years out of the factory, tapering off to almost complete fail by 15 years and almost none working after that
Cool fact - my Grandads cousin Dave use to own a chemist in Sydney and I think he still does. Anyway to celebrate how much cash he was making he brought a Ferrari Dino 246 GT. WOW. Then he sold that and got a GTHO Falcon Phase 3. And my Grandad drove both cars numerous times. And another cool thing. My Grandad was a pilot back then and he had the opportunity to fly drivers to the 1976 Bathurst 1000. Yes thats right and wanna know who they were? Sir Stirling Moss AND Sir Jack Brabham.
The thing is, a lot of airbags still function after being 15 or even 20-25 years old. I often look through salvage auctions and similar sites that offer damaged cars for sale and some damaged cars don't have fully open airbags - but a lot still do. This also differs by vehicle - I'm looking through Copart's "Front End Damage" section right now, and almost all late 90s Civics I saw have open airbags, while many Corollas of the same age don't. The airbag's lifespan is also influenced by climate.
Do you have to do it in such an obnoxious way? My family's story - my greatuncle owns a mechanic shop. In the 80s and early 90s, he used to build new FSO Polonezes out of factory parts, and people bought these cars in the wake of shortages of actual Polonezes. Also, my dad worked for him.
True. Your great Uncle has a cool story. My Grandad just lives out of Queensland now on a massive 138 acre farm. I told him that if I ever became rich (might actually happen the way I'm going), I'm gonna buy him a Porsche.
But in Oregon, you get more muscle. (Let's be honest... Oregon is also good for their variety of push-bars.)
Thats cute HSV GTS highway Patrol car - 0-100 km/h in 4.3 seconds Holden VF Commodore SS Police car Subie WRX Police car - wish they still used Subies FPV GTP Pursuit car - has about 600-700 HP. Don't wanna fuc* with one of these or a HSV. And this. A Mercedes C63 AMG Police car. Dunno what Aussie cops are gonna do about cop cars now though because the new "Commodore" is pretty much fuc*ing useless. There are a lot of high performance cars here in Australia. I'm talking Skylines, HSVs, few Exotics, fast Fords other JDM stuff etc. Cops need quick cars to keep up.
