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I live in the same zip code as the harder hit town (Columbus) in the southern Indiana flooding the first weekend of June. Our hospital is out of service for the next six months with more than 125 million in damages. The county is a national disaster area. Cummins has the tech center and plant one out of commission for a good while.
I live in a more hilly rural part of the county and the 10 inches of rain that we recieved on that friday nite and saturday morning became someone else's problem shortly after it fell. Personaly we are ok here but many others are without homes and large ammounts of personal possesions. 2 people died in this mess.

On to my question, I just recieved a letter from GM that looked like a recall notice but after reading it it was to inform me that our 96 Cavalier has the airbag controls under the drivers seat and should it become wet or submerged, it would no longer be trustwouthy. They even mentioned that the bag may go off on its own with no cause. Who comes up with these notices? Are they wanting to UP sales? Why did my 2000 Cavalier not get a letter? Where is the controller on the 99 Suburban? the 2001 duramax? Are they just wanting to scare me into upgradin the 96 to a newer car payment?

Thanks

 

yeah and guess where the airbag computer is on your dodge.

 

How are they upping sales? It is a recall notice, bring it to the dealer, they fix it, and GM pays for it. It costs you nothing and the car is fixed. The 2000 cavalier is 4 years newer, by then they probably combined the air bag controls with the body control module and mounted it in a different spot. If you choose to get a new car over a recall that is your decision and is in no way GM's fault.

 

Obviously, if they're doing a recall, there have been significant problems. Not all vehicles in a particular model line are affected the same. We see recalls periodically in Dodges, just like the other manufacturers, that only affect a single year model. Allot of things get found and fixed before the next years production. Manufacturers have allot of resources at there disposal so production changes aren't too difficult most of the time.

 

This is NOT a recall. They just want me to know that it is toast if it is wet.

 

Even if it is not a recall it is still your choice. What did you do before airbags? If the only reason you bought that cavalier was for the air bag then you need to buy a new car, otherwise don't rely on the air bag and continue driving.

 

All U.S auto makers put them under the passenger seat, it is not only an air bag control module, it is also an event recording device tied in with the ECM. An inadvertent air bag deployment would concern me more than anything else, so I know what I would do, just be advised, that if you disconnect anything the module knows it and stores it, so that information is available after an accident and it WILL be used by your insurance company, or theirs.



Tim

 

the odds of an "accidental deployment at any time" are little to none. Airbags are not the hair trigger plutonium bombs everyone thinks/assumes they are. Drop them, do whatever, they arent going to just randomly "go off" unless you apply 12 volts to the two terminals on the back. And even then its not likely because when you disconnect the special plug, there is a spring loaded shorting bar that shorts the two terminals of the ignitor... 999999 times out of a million the SDM will get soaked, short out/fail in some way, and turn on the airbag light in the instrument cluster..

ben

 

The only accidential air bag deployment I've personally heard of was at a local stereo shop. Guy installing a security system tested the airbag circuit by accident and shorted it out. But he'll never do that again since his arm was in front of the wheel and the airbag broke it. OUCH! DO NOT TEST THE PRETTY YELLOW PLUGS! HAHA

 

Funny you should say this, just today at work,(my f/t job), we get dispatched to a 7 yo child that got hit by an air bag and was having difficulty breathing. We arrive at the address, ( a car wash) expecting to find an mva, what we found was a kid that was sitting in the front passenger seat of a 97 Buick regal in a self serve car wash bay while his mother was power washing the car when the passenger side airbag inadvertently deployed striking the child while he was kneeling on the seat watching his mother. I guess they were the one in a million. It happens a lot more than we all realize, or auto manufacturers would not waist their time sending out notices.



Tim

 

she probably knocked the EFS loose with the power washer, forcing it to slam into the core support or something.

So only the pass side airbag deployed....?

they were one in a million, or close to it.....how many cars do you think are on the road right now equipped with airbags?

 

Yes only the passenger side deployed, as far as why I do not know. I can tell you this though, I have personally witnessed late airbag deployment at accident scenes and several days after a car involve in a wreck has been stored in our storage lot. We have a safety device that we install over a steering wheel of a vehicle involved in any kind of an accident just as a precaution.

Toyota is also recalling 30,000 Scion TC's sold exclusively in the U.S. do to random side airbag deployment. (just a heads up).


Tim

 

probably didnt deploy the driver side airbag because the seatbelt was unbuckled.

do you leave the batteries connected? The SDM has capacitive-discharge batteries in it that are only good for 1-2 minutes after vehicle electricl power has been removed.

the toyota thing, there was probably 1 or 2 instances in which random side impact deployments occured, and because stupid people in the US are so sue-happy, they are recalling a whole bucnh of them to cover their butts....


All im saying is just we really dont need to worry about them, its just that when tehre is an unexpected deployment, EVERYONE hears about it and everyone gets all paranoid and freaks out. Kinda like truck forums...its always problems people complain and talk about...nobody ever comes on and posts "hey, so my truck ran perfectly today, and got me to work! Nothing else to say"

Ben

 

My GM is under the driver's seat.

 

yea not all boxes are located under the pass. seat. Some are under center console, drivers seat, kick panels, etc. The big thing about water getting to that box is not only the fact that it may go of at a random time but it might not go off at the right time making it un-safe. If you get in a wreck and your head slams against the wheel then as its going back the bag deploys you could be looking at a broken neck or so. In your 2000 cavalier the box should be under the pass seat. i replaced one about two weeks ago in one.