[williamoss]

OK I have another question regarding the airbags. Removing the one on the steering wheel is relative simple. But how do your remove or change the one in front of the passenger seat. The dash is a solid piece of leather or vinyl. There is not a seam to show the cut out of the airbag. So do you have to remove the entire dash to get to the airbag? I just called Sunset. got the part numbers for both units. I hope you are sitting down for this.



Prices shown are list prices, i.e. not the selling price.



Steering wheel # 968 347 089 01 $1,128



Passenger side # 944 803 071 02 $2,478



Both are on Back Order from Germany, it would take 8-12 weeks to get, once they had enough orders to make a new batch up. Did someone say negotiate a group price?

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[flash]

it's not solid. the bag shell is actually a separate piece. it pops right out.



DO NOT REMOVE IT WITHOUT DISCONNECTING THE BATTERY!!!

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[bombfactory]

I'd think it wouldn't really help to buy a 'new' 968 airbag unit. Wouldn't it have just been sitting on a shelf for 20-25 years?

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[Bulti]

They should produce new generation airbags that fit our cars. Maybe with some kind of adapter of somekind. But that would probably be way too expensive.

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[flash]

i have one for the passenger side that i would sell

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[Eric_Oz_S2]

[quote name='ds968' timestamp='1403909007' post='159187']



a photo of my friend's arm after the airbag in her car deployed in a minor fender bender - you can tell what vehicle it is by the severe burn imprint it left on her arm.. somehow the steering wheel's emblem did not separate with the cover piece it's mounted on, as one would have expected..[/quote]



Ouch.



Airbags in the USA have lower deployment threshold and higher deployment force than Europe or Australia. Well, at least they did 10 years ago. Presumably as a result of the reluctance of USA passengers to wear a seatbelt. In the last 10 years or so airbags have improved in conjunction with pretensioners etc and now are much less likely to result in freak injuries or deaths like the antique ones of 20 years ago.

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[apex]

Airbags in the USA have lower deployment threshold and higher deployment force than Europe or Australia. Well, at least they did 10 years ago. Presumably as a result of the reluctance of USA passengers to wear a seatbelt. In the last 10 years or so airbags have improved in conjunction with pretensioners etc and now are much less likely to result in freak injuries or deaths like the antique ones of 20 years ago.

Great, then! :-) Except. Oh. Those antiques are the ones we're driving around with.

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[williamoss]

Regarding the age of ordering one from Sunset , i.e. Porsche in Germany, I called today, they are sending a email to Germany regarding the age of the units that Porsche would send to us. Will advise if I get an answer. But I was told by a parts department person at Sunset that both are back ordered, presumably till Porsche has enough orders to make a new batch. That statement sounds promising, in that they would make new ones and then ship them. But the idea of spending $3,000 - $3600 is not thrilling.

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[Ernie]

That's just crazy talk! <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/whine.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[williamoss]

ok if you are implying that spending $3,600 is crazy then send me a check for that amount and my set will be on you. I find that if someone here at the forum goes out of their way to help someone else there is always someone else who chimes in with a sarcastic remark

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[Ernie]

Relax William, I was only joking. My comment was based on the outrageous price that Porsche would gouge us and not a personal snipe at you. Fair enough?

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[flash]

$3k for an airbag is insane. anybody who is contemplating spending that needs to have their head examined. our airbags sucked when they were new. for $3k you could easily retrofit a newer airbag that would work better.



by the way, airbags don't age out like some people think. they are designed to last the life of the car.

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[Bulti]

...and how long is the (a) car supposed to "live"? I can not imagine they engineered the bags to stay crispy for 30 years? But I'm betting a lot of 968's will grow that old.

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[flash]

actually, they say at least 25 years.



regardless, at this point, spending a bunch of money on a bad design is silly. for that kind of money, it could be updated.

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[williamoss]

I agree with you that spending $3,000 on a pair of airbags is down right awful, but what can we do? and that was not the point of my starting this tread in the first place. It was a possible danger in the fact that the design of the airbag itself might be defective, in which case there should be a recall. If you go to Google and type in the following.



New York Times June 23,2014, NOW THE AIRBAGS ARE FULTY TOO you can read the article that I saw which prompted me to start this thread.



SO far I have not been able to find out from Porsche if they had bought the airbags from TAKATA, which is the company that seemed to manufacture airbags for most of the cars around the world and that TAKATA acknowledges poor record in airbag recalls by various companies that have admitted that the airbags are faulty and have recalled over 6 million vehicles.

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[Ernie]

I appreciate your concern and attempt at finding out the information for the rest of us. I would think that porsche would be well served to provide the information as a CYA, so to speak. Although they may have done the calculations and don't feel that there is a large enough fiscal element to be concerned about? After all, look at GM and the ignition recalls. I think this may also be the issue with the IMS failures known to plague the boxsters and 911s, right?

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[williamoss]

actually what GM has done in the past documented testimony in front of Congress is they do actuarial studies on how much a recall will cost over how many people will be killed or injured and how much they will have to pay. If it is less for injuries and deaths then in the past they did not issue a recall. Not very encouraging for the driver a vehicle. We can only hope Porsche does not do the same thing.



It seems that in re rereading the article that TAKATA acquired a majority stake in a German air bag company called PETRI in the year 2000. That may be the company that made the Porsche air bags. It was also unclear as to when TAKATI became aware of the possible defects in it's air bags, some being manufactured over a decade ago in its MEXICO plant.

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[williamoss]

Has anyone pulled their airbags out of their cars. It seems that on the airbag there may be a stamping of the name of the manufacturer or even a part number. This would help a great deal as I just spent 2 hours trying to speak with a person at TAKATA and all I got was a corporate run around or a computer asking me to say the name of the person I wanted to speak with, i.e. not the department, nor was an operator available to talk with.

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[apex]

This is a great thread. Thanks williamoss for bringing it to our attention.

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[williamoss]

Well this is not a good response. I called Sunset Porsche who sent an email to the factory. Luke in the parts dept. called me back today. The factory response was Porsche will not release information on who manufactures parts for Porsche whether old or new. My thoughts were if I could of found out who the manufacturer was I might of been able to contact them to see if they are involved in the recall of the airbags due to humidity or moisture getting into the air bag container. If as I suspect the manufacture was a company called Petrie, which was bought by the company TAKATA then there might be a chance that there should be a recall on them. But Porsche will not tell us who the manufacturer was.



So again did anyone ever pull out a air bag from a 968. If so is there a sticker on it or a stamping saying the name of the company who manufactured it. Is there a part number? Is there a sticker saying lifetime guarantee?



Do any of you think that all the owners of all models of Porsche weather 968, 911 etc. would have the basis for a class action lawsuit against Porsche in Germany to force them to release the information and to divulge if the part was covered as a lifetime guarantee as Toyota & Honda have done as they did a recall on over 6 million vehicles world wide?

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