Hey guys, new to this forum, as it looks like I'm going to be buying a 97 camaro in the near future. But before i do that, i gotta figure a few things out. namely the airbags...

SO the airbags have gone off, and the airbag light is on. My friend (who im buying it off of), after the airbags went off, just cut them out and continued to drive the car as is. She wasn't in any real accident, she had driven up on a curb and they went off on her. For me to register the car, I would need to get it inspected and it obviously won't pass in the condition it is in. (i'm in Rhode Island, by the way).

my question is, could i get the dash and steering wheel restored and have the airbag light turned off withOUT replacing the airbags? i'd rather not have airbags in it, to be honest, i don't particularly trust them. especially seeing how easily they went off on my friend.

or is having them replaced/installed my only real option? thanks in advance guys!

 

no? no one has any idea? gotta get the ball rollin on this thing!

 

You would have to check to see if your state has any laws about it. Here in IL, a car owner is not required by law to replace an air bag if it's been deployed. Other states may, and probably will differ. Then there's the liability issue, if you're in a crash and a passenger is injured. Since anybody can sue for any reason, they could say their injuries were worse because of a lack of an airbag, whether or not it's the truth. And if I were the girl selling the car, I would put a c.y.a. clause on the bill of sale stating that you were notified of the lack of airbags.
That's the long answer. The short answer to your question about leaving them out is yes, if you do it yourself. But, if part of the state inspection involves them checking for an airbag light to go on with the ignition switch, then you're screwed.

 

cool, i appreciate it man. if i restored it sans-bags, and pulled the bulb or something, wouldn't that do the trick too? in theory?

and another question, if i got someone to replace the airbags in full, is there a fuse or something i could pull so they will essentially be disabled? is this possible at all?

 

probably not what you want to hear but

why not ask your mom and dad if they would like for you to have airbags?

If my daughters car didn't have airbags she would not be alive today.

So, it's akin to motorcycle riders who don't wear a leather jacket, or ride in shorts and flip flops or without a helmet. Once they experience dropping the bike on the street and getting road rash, or worse, they understand.

So, how much is your life worth to you? Personally, I'd prefer to still be able to read new posts from you 40 years from now.

 

yeah, i hear you. probably a good idea to just get them installed the proper way. Im apprehensive about them, have never had a car with airbags. they kind of like loaded guns in my mind. and this car in particular, because it didn't seem to take a whole lot to trigger them and really caught Dana (my friend, PO) and her friend off guard (again, she drove up onto a curb). so i guess my next question would be, is there anything that would make the trigger more or less sensitive? i don't mean like an adjustable **** or anything like that, i just mean potential wiring issues and whatnot.

 

hey guys, still trying to figure this out. Any idea how much it would cost to have both airbags replaced at a shop? How easy/difficult would it be to do it myself? I tend to do a lot of my own work on my cars, so I'm pretty handy when it comes to that, but never worked with airbags before.

also, i can't seem to find a replacement passenger airbag WITH a cover....or could i just reinstall the old cracked one without a problem?

thanks guys, appreciate it!

 

Depending on how she hit the curb and with what part of the car the airbags could deploy by normal means. There are sensors on the frame rails and in your case the upper core support and last but not least on the tranny tunnel under the console. You need to trip one forward sensor and the one under the console to trigger the bags. Now that being said they are engineered to be triggered through the bumper, not directly hitting the frame or core support. The bumper will absorb alot of shock and energy in a crash so the bags will not deploy until 25+ MPH but if you hit the core support directly then it will only need about 8-10 MPH to trigger them all. That does not sound like much but 8-10 MPH does some damage when you have 3000lbs of car behind it all. I would look into the car having damage on the lower core support under and behind the front bumper. You will have to look from underneath. Also once triggered the air bag sensors that were triggered need to be replaced. They dont return to their normal positions after an accident. If you do replace the bags and not the sensors the system will still be in error and the bags will be inop/ light on.

The passenger bag cover is the dash cover itself and you will need to replace the whole dash to get the stuff to look right. Replacing the dash is not hard it is just time consuming. An airbag shop will be able to tell you what sensors tripped and then you can get replacements from them or from GM direct. As far as I know some local/state laws prevent wrecking yards from selling airbag components.

Massey

 

alright, thanks massey. so there are airbag specific shops? this is new to me. sounds like it's a bit pricey.

and in terms of the passenger cover, i don't particularly car how it looks at the moment, i just need to get it to pass inspection

 

you can go to a junk yard and get bags the driver bag is held in with 4 torque screws on the back of the wheel and the pass bag is bolted in under the dash easy to put in just make sure you UNHOOK THE BATTERY first this is the most important thing cuz youll plug it in and boom they'll blow them go to a chevy dealer and its like 100$ or so and they'll reset the switches and your all set i had to do this on my celica bc of a deer bags were 50$ for the set so 150$ for the whole thing(ps bags can total new cars there VERY expensive)