[MCL968]

Excellent points, and delivered with appropriate tone.

 

Given my not so recent battles with the airbag light (we have fought to a draw) I wonder about chucking the whole system, or minimally disabling it without making the dreaded ! light remain permanently on.

 

There were threads on here about changing the steering wheel out and using a resistor to make the system think the airbag was still connected, but what about the passenger units? They appear virtually identical to the steering wheel airbag, just two in number and side by side. Would they take the same resistor?

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[pdxmike]

Sorry to hear about that ongoing problem. Are you saying you want to permanently disable the SRS to make the lights go away? So thinking the fault is in one of the airbags themselves?

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[Waylander]

I dont have any air bags at all, factory ordered with the CS steering wheel, and no passenger bag as it was an expensive option in Europe not a requirement


But if I did have airbags then I would agree with you

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[94SilverCab]

Mike,

 

1) You discuss relative safety of Gen 2 vs. Gen 1, but how about Gen 1 against a disabled SRS? 968Forums explicitly recommends not inactivating any manufacturer safety equipment for a road vehicle.

 

2) I would allow you to post on your child safety equipment solution, as I'm sure you would caveat any and all modifications as "personal experience", 

 

968Forums explicitly recommends against inactivating any manufacturer safety equipment for a road vehicle.

 

Jay

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[ds968]

Mike,

 

1) You discuss relative safety of Gen 2 vs. Gen 1, but how about Gen 1 against a disabled SRS? 968Forums explicitly recommends not inactivating any manufacturer safety equipment for a road vehicle.

 

2) I would allow you to post on your child safety equipment solution, as I'm sure you would caveat any and all modifications as "personal experience", 

 

968Forums explicitly recommends against inactivating any manufacturer safety equipment for a road vehicle.

 

Jay

 

 

+1 , +1 , +1 ..and a million other + 1s on this.     You might get banged up very seriously by 1st generation air bags, bruises and burns among that , or even by 2nd generation ones , and yes anyone of very small stature and weight ( little kids in particular ) can even get killed if sitting in the front seats and not in rear-facing child seats , but in a major collision the bag / SRS  CAN and WILL save your life !   ( hopefully we don't have Takata air bags in our cars that explode without reason and send metal pieces flying everywhere ) but otherwise any factory SRS systems should never be removed.  Furthermore if your insurance company discovers it,  they will cancel your policy, and may even deny a liability claim to a third party you might have injured in an accident even though ostensibly your removal of the SRS system in your car is arguably an unrelated matter to other parties damages and injuries, but insurance companies will look for every possible excuse and loophole to deny a claim and illegal modification of safety features of your car is one of those..   

 Before buying the Super Charger I demanded a written letter from my insurance company that the mod will not affect my policy coverage in any way.  Just keep in mind not all insurance companies follow the same underwriting standards, they vary from company to company, but I'm almost certain they all frown upon removal of any OEM safety  features.      

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[pdxmike]

Dan is 100% correct - our first gen SRS is safer than a car with no airbags - for those ages 12 and up. There's no data (of course) on whether a 968 with an intact SRS would be more or less safe than one with a disabled system (or as in Waylander's case, one that came without an SRS from the factory). I would extrapolate that in most situations, the car with the disabled system would be less safe. It's very hard to say exactly how much less safe, however. In terms of relative risk, the best available study demonstrated that all cars, from all makers, with first gen units have a risk ratio of 0.90 compared with no airbag. So, based on that data, in 10% of crashes where there was a fatality, the fatality would have been prevented if the car had had first gen airbags. Again - it's hard to extrapolate to the 968 - but based on that data (and this is admittedly morbid, sorry) if one were to disable the SRS in 10 968s, and if there were fatal crashes in all 10, in one of those crashes a life would have been saved by having intact airbags. 

 

Dan - to put your mind at rest - no Porsches were recalled for having Takata bags - every Ferrari manufactured from 2012 to 2017 was recalled, however. 

 

At some point I might post my child seat solution. I'm convinced it's safer than the installed seats in at least three-fourths of the cars on the road. I have a 944 S2 interior in my car so the rear seats are a little different but I imagine it would still work the same. 

 

I work at a Level 1 trauma hospital - hence the preoccupation. 

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[Rap]

I have no science or facts to base my statements just experience. I hit a wall at the track pretty close to head on in my beloved red 968. The passenger airbag which I had thought to have been removed engaged. Now this isn’t an apples to apples comparison but I was in a racing seat with a harness and HANS device and a removable Momo wheel. The air bag of course had been taken out. Grace of god no injuries. The thing I was so impressed with was that the cockpit remained intact.i don’t argue against airbags that of course would be stupid but Porsche designed a very strong cockpit way back then. Because I have an opposable thumb the next car has a full nascar roll cage and fire suppression system. Luck eventually runs out!

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