Airbags - only last 10 years ?

The Bosch ones where originally rated for ten years, most manufacturers extended this to 15 years.

It's the initiator that ignites the sodium azide that is usually the suspect part. Most bags should be good for 10 to 15 years, and then will need swapping.

Only if used car buyers care about airbags.

5th Gear TV programme had this airbag lifetime issue as a feature a few weeks ago & tested some ancient scrapyard banger's airbag . It worked.

SteveB (sbrads@nildramDOTcoDOTuk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Can't have been THAT ancient a scrapyard banger. Airbags only started to come in in the early 90s - not that much over the ten years and certainly not much over fifteen.

They came in to use from 1967 in the states, 1974 was first proper production car with them, all US cars had to have them by 1989, so there are probably quite a few in scrap yards. Especially on Volvos and the like.

mrcheerful

IIRC it was a Rover 600...

Tim S Kemp ( snipped-for-privacy@timkemp.karoo.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

In production 1993-2000...

mrcheerful. ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

You sure about those dates? Sources?

I can only find 1998 as a compulsory date for the US. and plenty to suggest that '89 was about when they *started* to offer them in anything other than very small numbers.

Yes, and an early one is not worth a carrot (late ones are only worth two carrots), so there are loads in the scrappies.

Like many older mechanics I have great difficulty in accepting that to most people a car that is 5 years old is TOO old. Yet if you walk round a modern scrapyard there are not many cars of 10 years or older, they take up too much room and don't move fast enough !!!

mrcheerful

mrcheerful. ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

I think you miss my point.

Even if it's a '93 600, it's *only* just outside the manufacturer-approved

10 years life for the airbag, so firing it and saying "Yeh, it's not a problem" is hardly a realistic "No, you don't need to replace 'em at 10" test. Fire one that's 20-25 years old, and see what happens. Ooops. You can't.

FWIW, my car's hitting it's tenth birthday in a few months and I will not be spending the £180+vat for a driver's airbag, let alone however much the passenger one is.

I looked on wikipedia, that says that congress made it mandatory for all cars by 1989. Perhaps it is wrong, but either way, there are plenty of air bag equipped cars in the scrappies.

mrcheerful

The segment on 5th Gear was due to airbags first becoming available in the UK 25 years ago - as an optional extra on the W126 S Class.

mrcheerful. ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Wikipedia? Wrong? Surely NOT!

Indeed. The vast vast majority of which will be quite a bit less than

15years old.

Actually you can, but you have to go to the US.

It was a "P" reg IIRC, so only 9 years old.

Skoda say 14 years. Of course, the cost to replace would be about 50x the value of the car by then, so it's a bit of a joke.

so a whole load of answers !

best to ask the particular manufacturer i guess

thanks

I can easily find reference to a Ford Mercury Monterey from 1973 with airbags. It's on the web because it was the first production model to have switchable passenger side airbags to avoid injuring unbelted children (!!!).

You can be fairly certain that drivers side aitrbags only were available well before that.

As you say. In fact Mercedes made them standard fit for their whole range of cars in

1989 in the USA but they were a comparitively rare option before this and not common until the mid Nineties. Early ones and some still intended for use in America, where little use is made of seatbelts, are of a bigger and more powerful variety than commonly fitted to cars destined for the European markets.

Huw