Airbags went off for no reason

[EJS]

nearside airbags went off for no reason on Sunday.

No fault found by Dealership. £3500 bill for rebuild but no reason for deployment so it is now with Mercedes Customer Care.

Do I trust the car when I get it back

 

[gl boy]

nearside airbags went off for no reason on Sunday.

No fault found by Dealership. £3500 bill for rebuild but no reason for deployment so it is now with Mercedes Customer Care.

Do I trust the car when I get it back

a worry is it a warranty job

 

[EJS]

Not under warranty

 

[gl boy]

Not under warranty

you need to talk to MB uk and explain your problem...this happened to my friend years ago not under warranty but after a phone call (many infact )they agreed to do free of change hope it helps

 

[marcos]

Excuse my ignorance but how in gods name does one airbag going off cost £3,500
The only explaination is that it's the passenger dash mounted one and you need a complete new dash.

 

[Will]

Does the 210 have side airbags as well as the main passenger one?

They're not cheap anyhow - plus the £100+/hour labour for fitting etc

 

[EJS]

Passenger side door went and also the curtain.

MB dealership cannot find a reason and have had to strip the car down to try and find out why it happened but still no joy.

I understand where the £3500 is coming from but not why they are looking for me to pay for a safety feature failing.

I did manage to keep the car in a straigth line so not secondary damage, well done me

 

[aka$h]

Dont give up and keep contacting MBUK. Good luck with it.

 

[lexuscol]

If you get no joy with MB UK. write to CEO MB Stuttgart. He has a lot of power

 

[television]

Excuse my ignorance but how in gods name does one airbag going off cost £3,500
The only explaination is that it's the passenger dash mounted one and you need a complete new dash.

With the side curtains its the door panels, head lining possibly, and the dash

 

[glojo]

I'm trying to get my head around this and looking at it from the outside in.

If this air-bag went off for no reason then it is an alarming allegation. If it went off in one car, then why are we not seeing thousands of vehicles all with air-bags detonating for no reason?

We once owned an E-class 210 and one day whilst negotiating a round-about a car drove straight onto the side of our vehicle. Such was the impact the offending vehicle was wrote off but NONE of the air-bags in our vehicle detonated. (It had ALL the optional side airbags) When the two nearside doors were replaced I asked about the airbags and wanted to know why the failed to activate and would they be replaced.

The answers were that the bags need a certain degree of force to activate and the body-shop was happy that they were safe to fit back into the new doors? Can it be like a safety match? You can strike it to see if it works, but you can only do this once.

Would these airbags be vulnerable to detonating for no reason because of there individual history? Is the manufacturer responsible for this and if so why?

Regarding this specific post, is the owner 100% certain about the car's history? Has it ever been involved in any type of accident? Why should the manufacturer be responsible? Why should they accept liability?

I am merely asking questions to become more knowledgeable.

Good luck getting this issue resolved.

Regards
John

 

[grober]

There have been instances where airbags have been the subject of safety recalls. My drivers airbag was replaced by Mercedes FOC when the car was 5 years old. I cant remember the exact reason but it involved chemical degradation of the unit causing spontaneous activation. This was more marked in countries with high levels of humidity where the fault had first come to light.
So its possible in theory that some sort of chemical/electrical fault triggered it. Since these units are triggered by accelerometers I suppose hitting a huge pothole/kerb at speed in an unusual way might just do it. I would imagine that MB's attitude will be influenced by the cars MB service history where presumably a potential airbag fault might have been revealed by a fault code readout during servicing?? Hope you get to the bottom of it since something like that must be quite worrying.

 

[ShinyF1]

Nervously looking at my nearside airbags now - I'm interested in where this goes.

Good luck EJS with getting an MB contribution...

 

[BTB 500]

I guess it's also possible for them to be triggered by a powerful radio device at short range. E.g. I wouldn't personally want to put a mobile phone in close proximity to a live airbag.

 

[ShinyF1]

I guess it's also possible for them to be triggered by a powerful radio device at short range. E.g. I wouldn't personally want to put a mobile phone in close proximity to a live airbag.

?Really?

 

[BTB 500]

?Really?

Yes really.

You've probably only got to induce a small current in a detonator to make it fire. It's also possible for mobile phones to corrupt intelligent controllers etc. at short range. I fly r/c planes, and there have been several cases where computer transmitters have had settings / memories scrambled this way.

 

[Rory]

I'm trying to get my head around this and looking at it from the outside in.

If this air-bag went off for no reason then it is an alarming allegation. If it went off in one car, then why are we not seeing thousands of vehicles all with air-bags detonating for no reason?

It's by no means an unheard of event.

 

[glojo]

It's by no means an unheard of event.

I certainly never said it wasn't, this is a motoring forum where I would expect to read about this type of issue. We can learn from it and also check to see how many other owners of this specific model have suffered the same problem. Who here knows beyond any doubt the full history of this car? I'm hoping it has been in the same hands since first registered, has not any any accident damage, panels replaced etc etc. That way I would be knocking on the door of the manufacturer, but without that information, how can we offer any constructive comment?

If heat were an issue then it could be a problem in Middle East countries etc, but I doubt that it is but I have an open mind?

Regards
John

 

[television]

When testing these things you use a dummy load, where the sensors can all be tested without causing any harm

I friend of mine who did not speak to his wife kept a plank of wood in the center of the bed, Can you do this in the car ? just in case

 

[Merc-C180K]

My uncle had this in his Honda. A small shard of plastic went into his eye and he thought nothing of it.

We told him to get it checked out my an optician and it turned out that he had lost 3% of his sight in his right eye.

Called Honda and they wanted to charge for the Airbag rebuild - a similar price if I recall.

Told him to get a solicitors letter sent - outcome was a new car and a compensation cheque (5 figures...)

Lesson? Don't just take the dealers word for anything. Check, check and check again what your rights are in this area.

Hope everything works out for you.