Unnecessary Airbag Deployment

spartacus93

Hey Guys

Pulling out of a garage forecourt this evening and bang! this happened...



Got the fright of my life, the whole car filled with "smoke", or whatever is in the airbags.

The surface out of the garage is a bit uneven, but speed certainly wasn't a factor as I was approaching the road, with traffic, so I was getting ready to stop and wait. I would say about 10km max, I was literally just pulling away from the pumps and approaching the road. (there's a bit of a gap between the pumps and the road). Had a good look around and there was no sign of anything that could have hit the car, my friend also came down and had a look for me (I didn't move the car until he came). He agreed, and couldn't explain it at all. The car drives fine, and he dropped me home in it.

The garage is about a ten - fifteen second drive my house, and I would be in there most days of the week.

Getting a replacement car in the morning, the garage reckon Skoda will foot the bill if they can't find evidence of a crash. They were quite shocked to hear about it tbh.

Does anyone have any information, or has anyone heard of this happening before?

Thanks Lads

(it's a 05 Skoda Octavia btw)

Tipsy Mac

Any history on the car, have you owned it from new? Any fault lights showing up on the dash beforehand?

spartacus93

Tipsy Mac wrote: »

Any history on the car, have you owned it from new? Any fault lights showing up on the dash beforehand?

I'm the third owner. I have it two years, I bought it off a friend, and Skoda Mechanic, who had a genuine reason for selling.

It has a full Skoda service history, but I have no information on the first owner. It all checked out fine when my friend bought the car, and he serviced the car while it was owned by the original owner.

The only warning light was to say my front fog light bulb was gone!

unkel

That is shocking! Pretty serious stuff. Don't want to think about what would happen if you were driving on a single carriageway national road at 100km/h and the airbags deployed.

I for one would appreciate if you posted here what Skoda have to say about it.

spartacus93

unkel wrote: »

That is shocking! Pretty serious stuff. Don't want to think about what would happen if you were driving on a single carriageway national road at 100km/h and the airbags deployed.

I for one would appreciate if you posted here what Skoda have to say about it.

Thanks Unkel.

I certainly will, I'm doing quite a bit of driving these days, so, although I'm seriously pissed it happened at all, it could have been a whole lot worse.

The "smoke" really did come as a shock, I couldn't even see out of the windscreen, had I been driving at speed on a busy road anything could have happened.

alo1587

unkel wrote: »

That is shocking! Pretty serious stuff. Don't want to think about what would happen if you were driving on a single carriageway national road at 100km/h and the airbags deployed.

I for one would appreciate if you posted here what Skoda have to say about it.

Thats what DID happen to a friend of mine while driving her 99 E46 318I,she hit a pothole (and not a very big one at that) at 100km/h.The curtain airbags and door airbags deployed,the force was so much that it forced her arm up and she lost her grip on the wheel.She was lucky not to crash.She said it was like a shotgun going off.She had comp insurance so her insurance company got it taken to the main BMW dealer to get repaired.Cost 2 grand i think.BMW didnt stand over it,I must ask her again why not.Maybe the fact that the car was 8 years old at the time.

As unkle said i'd be interested in hearing what Skoda have to say as well!

mickdw

I was of the belief that this couldnt happen in any car with the multiple safety systems build into the airbag system.
This is a serious development and pretty much unheard of I would assume. Never mind skoda fixing it for free, they would need to do better than that.
I have heard of an Alfa 166 firing the airbags without damage to the car but it was a result of a sharp bang down onto the road after taking some air and possibly at the point of impact momentarily suffered a sharp deceleration.
Did anyone by any chance tamper with the system to attempt to turn off the pasenger airbag at any stage?

spartacus93

mickdw wrote: »

I was of the belief that this couldnt happen in any car with the multiple safety systems build into the airbag system.

I was under the impression that a number of sensors are monitored by the airbag "ECU". No single sensor by itself can set off an airbag, but a signal from two would be looked at by the ECU which would then decide whether or not to deploy. Speed, and perhaps some other conditions would be looked at also.

I also thought that, traveling as slowly as I was, it would be impossible to deploy an airbag, no matter what you hit. Again, I could be wrong about this, and I'm sure it varies from car to car.

mickdw wrote: »

Did anyone by any chance tamper with the system to attempt to turn off the pasenger airbag at any stage?

Not to my knowledge, there was never a need to do this. There's a keyhole in the glovebox for disabling the passenger airbag and to the best of my knowledge it has never been touched.

Anan1

I saw front & rear RHS side airbags deployed on an Audi A8 once. The owner had brought the car back with no visible damage, screaming blue murder about court cases. Subsequent examination showed impact damage to the RHS sill.

woody33

Mrs. W33 sat into the Saab 95 one morning a few months ago, switched on and BANG! the airbag in the driver's seat went off. I was in the house with the windows closed but I heard it. She was shook up, slightly deafened and her hair singed, Saab said they had never heard of it happening before, though that's not what the internet says. We haven't chased it up with Saab yet, and interestingly the car recently passed it's NCT with a big red airbag warning triangle on the dash. It would have been a different story if the bag had deployed at speed.

Zube

woody33 wrote: »

Mrs. W33 sat into the Saab 95 one morning a few months ago, switched on and BANG! the airbag in the driver's seat went off.

I think this sort of problem will become more common as the airbags out there get older. I think current ones are rated for 10 years use before they should be replaced, by which time it won't be worth replacing them, so nobody will.

Del2005

Zube wrote: »

I think this sort of problem will become more common as the airbags out there get older. I think current ones are rated for 10 years use before they should be replaced, by which time it won't be worth replacing them, so nobody will.

5th Gear did a crash test with an early 90s car and the airbag worked fine, they where checking to see if the 10+ years would have affected the airbag. Saying that we've all seen things that should last a long time that don't.

Busta Hyman

When airbags came out first some insurance companies offered optional airbag insurance to cover accidental deployment. when i spoke to my insurance agent he said"dont worry about that cause if they do go off youll **** yourself and crash anyway" ......... reassuring

spartacus93

Had to file a report with Skoda Ireland today. They are sending someone to look at the car on Friday or Monday.

The car is with the main dealer in Waterford, they're very good and I have a replacement car. Hopefully Skoda won't spend too long thinking about it...

I didn't get a proper quote from the dealer for the parts, but the figure of 2 - 2.5k for parts alone seems to be coming up a bit. It needs new dash, new steering wheel, two new airbag units, new airbag sensors maybe, and two new front seatbelts!!

unkel

spartacus93 wrote: »

I didn't get a proper quote from the dealer for the parts, but the figure of 2 - 2.5k for parts alone seems to be coming up a bit. It needs new dash, new steering wheel, two new airbag units, new airbag sensors maybe, and two new front seatbelts!!

Bloody hell. Take labour into account and it means most 6-8 year old cars would be a write-off. And never mind if the airbag deployment happened while driving!

Please keep us updated on this, spartacus93.

x in the city

unkel wrote: »

Bloody hell. Take labour into account and it means most 6-8 year old cars would be a write-off. And never mind if the airbag deployment happened while driving!

Please keep us updated on this, spartacus93.

tbh skoda should give him a new car, or reimburse him the value.

I for one wouldnt be so keen on getting a car repaired that had all the air bags deployed and a new dash, seat belts etc...

erm, no thanks...