TOYOTA STARLET AIRBAG DEPLOYMENT NO COLLISION

Gizzer24

Hi guys first time poster looking for info and help.

I have a 1997 toyota starlet with very low miles (irish car), it is always maintained and nct`d to date, 1000 miles ago.
Basically i was driving down the Fonthill Road last week after finishing the gym, went around one roundabout and BOOM airbag went off in my face, i managed to get the car to the side of the road safely and get out to let the dust and smoke escape

I called Toyota Ireland a few days later and asked them if this has ever happened before under no impact and they said no.He organised for my car to be booked in and inspected into a local toyota dealership.
they took the car into Carroll and Kinsella in Walkinstown and inspected the car.

They had the car for 2 days and got back to me and said that there was some marks underneath where it had been scracthed either from hitting the road or something else, i told him that myself and my wife had purchased the car about 2 yrs ago and the car has never been in any collison and has passed nct with no problems.

He then told me that Toyota do not want to deal with the matter any further, so i asked him was i to blame for the airbag going off? and he replyed that i shouldnt be putting words into his mouth and he is not there to blame anyone nor is he blaming me but he said that the car had come into some contact and thats the reason why the bag went off , this left me confused as I was the driver but yet he wasnt blaming me nor the car?????
I then told him that I had someone in the car with me and that there was no contact at all from my end nor my wife, so he told me to claim this from my insurance and he wasnt going to deal with it any further

I basically asked toyota ireland to look into the reason why it had detonated and that im lucky my wife was not driving it with my daughter at the time, im not looking for compensation at all, im looking for the reason why it went off, not an easy excuse on a "scratch" underneath to lay the blame on, and this is from a toyota expert in the business 15+ years!!

anybody have any paths i can search into or go about into getting the right result or investigation
im worried if i get it fixed it will happen with my wife in it,

colm_mcm

To be fair, the car is 15 years old


Far as I know these have some older mechanical system for the airbag. You just need to chalk it down to experience and move on,

Far as I know, airbags have a Best before date, I'm sure it's less than 15 years, if you're going to go legal on this it's worth checking this first.

Guy:Incognito

Not quite the same thing but I remember reading something about airbags generally only being good for about 12 years.

dr.fuzzenstein

Sounds more like they guy wanted to check it out, find some innocent reason for the malfunction, found something he didn't like whatsoever and decided to deny and stonewall, hoping you will let this go and they won't face any claims/bad press.
Otherwise why the dodgy behavior?
If he had a good explanation he wouldn't need to stonewall you.
Or he is just incredibly bad at PR and has no people skills.
Also, airbag will not go off from a scratch, there will have to be a substantial collision with some serious metal damage.

colm_mcm

Why would C&K lie?

Maybe the op should employ an independant automotive engineer to examine the car


Or just move on

Gizzer24

i understand car is 15 yrs old, but im not and i repeat im not looking for compensation, but only the ACTUAL reason why the bag went off not and not excuses because he found some evidence of damage underneath, im worried if i fix it that it will happen again to my wife and child

i called toyota and toyota called me to bring in my car to see what happened
but all i was giving was excuses but yet legally my car was deemed safe to drive 1000 miles ago in NCT???

"best built cars in the world" allegedly

Leonard Hofstadter

I know on some cars the airbags are supposed to be replaced after a certain period of time (usually 10 years). The original Volvo S40 springs to mind from memory.

Could it simply be the case here that the airbags should have been replaced after 10 years, but weren't?

In relation to the NCT (since you've brought it up twice now), it is NOT a certificate to say that the car is somehow 100% perfect. It is simply a certificate to say that the car has a certain standard of roadworthiness (and not a very high standard either).

CJhaughey

My T22 Avensis has a sign on the sunshade that says the Airbag has to be serviced after 10 years and then every 2 years after that.
I wonder does your Starlet have the same interval?

Pottler

Gizzer24 wrote: »

i understand car is 15 yrs old, but im not and i repeat im not looking for compensation, but only the ACTUAL reason why the bag went off not and not excuses because he found some evidence of damage underneath, im worried if i fix it that it will happen again to my wife and child

i called toyota and toyota called me to bring in my car to see what happened
but all i was giving was excuses but yet legally my car was deemed safe to drive 1000 miles ago in NCT???

"best built cars in the world" allegedly

considering the cars 15 years old and that airbags are electrically triggered regardless of the collision sensors fitted, I'd imagine wires chafed somwhere in the system and the bag deployed due to a short. Do wonders for your confidence next time you are going round a roundabout anyway!

colm_mcm

Far as I know the airbag in the starlet is self contained and has no external electrics.
Ie it's totally mechanical, there's an inertia switch which triggers the explosion.

Gizzer24

but not once did this toyota expert suggest the airbag unit was probably in order of replacement due to age, nor did he mention if the car had any history in any irish toyota dealership whether it had airbag replacements in the past

as regards to the nct i know the standard is low but why im refering to them is because that if there was any considerable damage to the underside of the vehicle then it would have been brought to my attention,
to be honest i probably would have been happier if he told me the reason it went off is because of the age factor more so than the small amount of scratch damage underneath

plus his demeanor was quite blunt and pointless with no back up plan, i just didnt understand him at times in his ways of explanations and theories

so all im asking if there is someone on here who works in the motor trade and understands the law side of it, i just want an answer why it went off, and if i fix it with a new one will it be safe to travel in again? and what can i say to these guys who know it all to source the REAL reason for deployment

andyseadog

questions for the OP.

what do you want to get from this?

if you want to find out why the airbag went off why don't you book it into a garage?

why do you thing toyota ireland should be responsible for investigating it for free? (maybe if the car was within their warranty but after 15 years and countless miles your lucky they entertained you at all)

why are you not satisfied with toyota irelands response?

what makes you thing NCT's examined the airbag in depth?

and moreso what makes you think that its condition couldn't have detiorated in the mean time?

it is not beyond reasonable doubt you stumbled upon a bump in the road the wrong way (not even a large one), activated the inertia switch and the airbag went off. terrible luck, but one of the most likely outcomes here really.

in my opinion its very naive of you to thing that this is toyota irelands problem to fix.

johnayo

I expect Toyota were vague with you because they were not to know what your next move was(compensation claim).
You should contact an independent motor assessor to check it out and see if you can get answers.

andyseadog

johnayo wrote: »

I expect Toyota were vague with you because they were not to know what your next move was(compensation claim).
You should contact an independent motor assessor to check it out and see if you can get answers. have a 15 year old starlet, a reliable if dull little car. spend €50 euro on a second hand airbag, chance your luck and move on. or if you have no confidence in the cars ability to protect your family, change it.

fixed your post.

edit : there are young lads on toyotaownersclub-irl that are dismantling starlets that cant give standard steering wheels away, you'l get a replacement airbag for feck all.

johnayo

andyseadog wrote: »

fixed your post.

Good man. That's what I meant to say.:D

MarkR

Any part can fail over time, and while alarming to think that a critical piece of safety equipment can fail, it's not possible for it to be 100% unless there is live updates from the car to the manufacturer at all times.

Something on a 15 year old car broke. It happens. If it was traction control, or abs, or a seatbelt jammed you wouldn't be thinking twice about ringing Mr Toyota.

All you can really do is suck it up and see if the fault is with the old airbag, or some other fault in the car causing the airbag to deploy.

Glad you were ok.

andyseadog

johnayo wrote: »

Good man. That's what I meant to say.:D

sorry, all in banter

johnayo

andyseadog wrote: »

sorry, all in banter

Appreciate that. Notice the smiley.:D

dr.fuzzenstein

Me bet is that if Toyota had said "it's a 15 year old airbag and they're only good for 10" the OP might have said fair enough.
It's more the manner of the response, it would have made me suspicious as well.
PR not their strong suit I'd say.

Mech1

Just everyone hang on a min and humour me.

Just say that the OP was doing 120Kph as is allowed on some of our motorways, in the outside lane overtaking a coach full of school kids in the middle lane. Airbag deploys (for no reason other than being old and the OP doesnt know to change it), OP hits the central barrier and bounces off into the path of the coach. Coach swerves loses control hits a artic truck in the inside lane, coach topples gets pushed to hard shoulder by artic. 10 kids / 1 teacher / artic driver all dead.

Who's to blame?

andyseadog

Mech1 wrote: »

Just everyone hang on a min and humour me.

Just say that the OP was doing 120Kph as is allowed on some of our motorways, in the outside lane overtaking a coach full of school kids in the middle lane. Airbag deploys (for no reason other than being old and the OP doesnt know to change it), OP hits the central barrier and bounces off into the path of the coach. Coach swerves loses control hits a artic truck in the inside lane, coach topples gets pushed to hard shoulder by artic. 10 kids / 1 teacher / artic driver all dead.

Who's to blame?

certainly not toyota ireland.

also i appreciate his scenario could have been much worse but all we can do is thank god or appreciate luck that it wasn't.

question to you, would your story have held as much sway if the bus had have been filled with middle aged people as opposed to school children?

Mech1

Yes , Why not? why not a cattle truck full of cows on the way to the abattoir. Injured and dead cattle all over the M50.

andyseadog

Mech1 wrote: »

Yes , Why not? why not a cattle truck full of cows on the way to the abattoir. Injured and dead cattle all over the M50.

he'd be grand, sure his airbag would be out

kirving

Well, it's up to the driver to ensure all manufacturer remmomended services are carried out. Same goes for perished tyres, rused chassis, corroded brake lines.

Was the sensor ever damaged, even by a previous owner? Would a seperate electrical fault have set off the airbag? Did a stone hit the sensor? There are lots of reasons it could happen.

To be honest, I really wouldn't think it would go off like that, and I'd be as annoyed as yourself if it happenned to me. But, it is a 15 year old car which may have suffered any amount of untold damage before you bought it.

Mech1

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Well, it's up to the driver to ensure all manufacturer remmomended services are carried out. Same goes for perished tyres, rused chassis, corroded brake lines.

Was the sensor ever damaged, even by a previous owner? Would a seperate electrical fault have set off the airbag? Did a stone hit the sensor? There are lots of reasons it could happen.

To be honest, I really wouldn't think it would go off like that, and I'd be as annoyed as yourself if it happenned to me. But, it is a 15 year old car which may have suffered any amount of untold damage before you bought it.

I totally agree but it seems Toyota are not making the expected (required I would say) effort to get to the bottom of the situation / fault. It wouldnt be the first time Manufacturers have considered recall costs versus insurance claim costs.

I would approach toyota again with a list of questions.

Mech1

Question 1: What are the service requirements of my airbag. and where are these requirements published?

eth0

An airbag going off like that could end badly and 15 years is nothing for a car these days. If it doesn't last 20 with a bit of looking after I'd call it a heap of shoite.

Airbags are not supposed to just go off without a serious crash, incidents like this only scare people into buying a new car and replacing a perfectly good one because its old, or servicing at main dealers which is a rip off. I'm starting to get fierce weary of airbags and a lot of the other safety features that have been foist upon us over the past few years

Anan1

Years ago when I worked for a well-known Dublin VAG dealership we had a new Audi A8 come back with no visible damage, front & rear passenger side airbags out and the owners wife screaming blue murder about lawsuits and the rest. The car was put up on a ramp, and guess what? As in the OP's case, the owner was politely told to FO.

colm_mcm

eth0 wrote: »

An airbag going off like that could end badly and 15 years is nothing for a car these days. If it doesn't last 20 with a bit of looking after I'd call it a heap of shoite.

Airbags are not supposed to just go off without a serious crash, incidents like this only scare people into buying a new car and replacing a perfectly good one because its old, or servicing at main dealers which is a rip off. I'm starting to get fierce weary of airbags and a lot of the other safety features that have been foist upon us over the past few years

When's the last time you heard of something like this happening though?

eth0

colm_mcm wrote: »

When's the last time you heard of something like this happening though?

A few months ago

colm_mcm

Another starlet I suppose?

Guy:Incognito

I very much suspect that you would rather a facefull of airbag than one full of steering rack and windscreen in a crash Etho.

Mech1

"This sort of thing" rarely happens, but when it does it warrants proper investigation not just "well there are a few scratches under your car"

Proper Investigation would put the OP's mind at rest and shouldnt be that difficult for a trained engineer armed with the vehicle manufacturer deployment parameters.

Mech1

It should also be in Toyotas own interest to have a proper investigation carried out.

colm_mcm

What I gt from it was that they found (fresh I assume) scrapes underneath the and blamed it on that, while not outright calling the OP a liar.

Mech1

What do you find comical about a life threatining situation that has occured according to the OP.

If the roof on your house was badly designed 15 years ago and fell in on your bed one night killing someone would you just say "oh well its outta warranty"?

Mech1

I guess your insurance company would have a long talk with the builder.

Mech1

"Throwing a wobbler" is not what the OP is about if you take the time to read it.

I would assume that IF there was a serious safety problem to come to light at Porsche then of course they would be obliged to report it to present owners and offer a soloution. If not they could be accused of manslaughter if a proven known defect was not acted upon.

Mech1

As I am sure you have heard BMW have just recalled cars back to 2003 due to a safety defect.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0326/bmw-business.html

Mech1

Mech1 wrote: »

I totally agree but it seems Toyota are not making the expected (required I would say) effort to get to the bottom of the situation / fault. It wouldnt be the first time Manufacturers have considered recall costs versus insurance claim costs.

I would approach toyota again with a list of questions.

This has already been said, maybe you should reread the thread !

Bohrio

Toyota has recalled their cars several times before. If I remember correctly there was a major issue with one of their model (maybe it was a lexus) where the speed control unit wouldnt stop working after pushing the brakes causing a few deaths in the States.

Of course the amount of lawsuits where pretty high, however, toyota were very quick to recall all their affected vehicles and apologize for the inconvenience. They accepted all responsibility. Toyota took a bit hit because of this and were pretty bad economically.

If there is an issue with the starlets airbags that need to be addressed the only way to do so is to try gathering as many examples as possible and build a case.

So if the OP wants this all he has to do is bring the car to a mechanic and have a second opinion. Then, depending on the result, decide whether taking them to court or try to negotiate with them making them aware that there it seems to be an issue with the car etc.

If the mechanic who initially looked at the car found something and failed to report it he could be in trouble.

In my opinion this sort of things happen often enough... and it is not exclusive to toyota

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=72758303


http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=399340&mid=0&i=0&nmt=Airbag+went+off+-+without+impact%2Faccident&mid=0

Seems to be common enough and in some cases, this happened only when the car was new and still, the manufacturer decided not to pay for it...

Crazy world!

pippip

I'd be well pissed, I'd say Toyota wouldn't be as quick to tell the op to Foff if a serious injury or fatality had occurred. No matter how old the car, if no guidelines are given then to me an airbag should never randomly go off.

Get these guys from the US
http://www.healylawfirm.com/aop/product-liability/defective-airbag-lawsuit/

Anan1

pippip wrote: »

I'd be well pissed, I'd say Toyota wouldn't be as quick to tell the op to Foff if a serious injury or fatality had occurred. No matter how old the car, if no guidelines are given then to me an airbag should never randomly go off.

Get these guys from the US
http://www.healylawfirm.com/aop/product-liability/defective-airbag-lawsuit/

Toyota's position is that it didn't randomly go off.

pippip

Anan1 wrote: »

Toyota's position is that it didn't randomly go off.

I suspect an independent investigator may disprove that fairly quick

Anan1

pippip wrote: »

I suspect an independent investigator may disprove that fairly quick

Why?

pippip

Anan1 wrote: »

Why?

because it sounds like total bs.

The op has stated it didn't hit anything at that time. The scratch is just the first thing they saw that they could try and blame.

If i was the op i wouldn't bother taking it any further but if they did I don't think Toyota's excuse would fly against an independent investigation.

Bohrio

pippip wrote: »

because it sounds like total bs.

The op has stated it didn't hit anything at that time. The scratch is just the first thing they saw that they could try and blame.

If i was the op i wouldn't bother taking it any further but if they did I don't think Toyota's excuse would fly against an independent investigation.

I think that toyota are blaming it on those scratches as saying that the car had a collision in the past and this is the reason why the airbag went off now...

Still they need a third party to check this but I dont really see a point, if there was really an issue with these airbags there would be more people complaining, or maybe there are but we just dont know about it?

kippy

This has been said before but the OP needs to find out what, if any, replacement or service interval is advised for the airbags.
Then he needs to determine where this information is published, handbook that came with car (which the OP may not have) or otherwise.

Toyota and every manufacturer have a responsibility to publish this information to let the owner know if and when components are serviceable. If the handbook that came with the car originally then the OP has no idea what the intervals are.
If for example you bring a 12 year old car in for a service to a toyota garage, do they ask you "have the airbags been serviced"?

While I can understand a lot of peoples standpoint on this (its an old car, anything could have happened the car), I can see where the OP is coming from and this for me has highlighted something I was never aware of (maintenance on airbags - which may or may not be in the documentation I have with my car) It's a 12 year old focus btw, and I've never been asked when it has been in the garage (a mix of indy and ford) whether the airbags have been looked at.
I'll take it upon myself to read the documentation this evening as a result of this post. So thanks for that OP.

BTW, I'd easily admit to being par of the 80% + of car owners who aren't aware of such things, until now.

gyppo

Fwiw, I know of a case where the airbag went off in a Seat Ibiza a few years ago.
Elderly couple + 2 rear seat passengers were driving into a church car-park, and was entering though a gateway that was on an incline. The bottom of the car caught on the centre spud-stone (you know the bit inset into the ground where two gates meet in the middle), and stopped dead. This was enough to deploy the drivers airbag.
The car looked absolutely perfect, and as far as I know, there was little if no damage to the underneath of the car.


Point of all of the above is that there may have been a reason for the airbag going off, but there may be little evidence of why it went off.

ShadowHearth

I will go to hell for this, but am I the only one who finds it quite funny.

Sorry op.

Bohrio

kippy wrote: »

This has been said before but the OP needs to find out what, if any, replacement or service interval is advised for the airbags.
Then he needs to determine where this information is published, handbook that came with car (which the OP may not have) or otherwise.

Toyota and every manufacturer have a responsibility to publish this information to let the owner know if and when components are serviceable. If the handbook that came with the car originally then the OP has no idea what the intervals are.
If for example you bring a 12 year old car in for a service to a toyota garage, do they ask you "have the airbags been serviced"?

While I can understand a lot of peoples standpoint on this (its an old car, anything could have happened the car), I can see where the OP is coming from and this for me has highlighted something I was never aware of (maintenance on airbags - which may or may not be in the documentation I have with my car) It's a 12 year old focus btw, and I've never been asked when it has been in the garage (a mix of indy and ford) whether the airbags have been looked at.
I'll take it upon myself to read the documentation this evening as a result of this post. So thanks for that OP.

BTW, I'd easily admit to being par of the 80% + of car owners who aren't aware of such things, until now.

he will have to check with toyota indeed. But I have read that most airbags have to go through a maintainance check after 10 years and then 2 years thereafter.

I just read this on wiki

"Maintenance
Globe icon.
The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (September 2008)

Some automakers (such as Mercedes-Benz) call for the replacement of undeployed airbags after a certain period of time to ensure their reliability in an accident. One example is the 1992 S500 which has an expiry date sticker attached to the door pillar. Some Škoda vehicles say 14 years from the date of manufacture. In this case replacement would be uneconomic as the car would have negligible value at 14 years old, far less than the cost of fitting new airbags. Volvo, on the other hand, has stated "airbags do not require replacement during the lifetime of the vehicle," though this cannot be taken as a guarantee on the device.[44]

If I had a totoya service manual it would be easy to check i suppose!