[williamoss]

Don't know if this is the proper place to put this question, but on eitherTuesday or Wednesday The NY Times had an article that a Japenese company which has produced most of the air bags in many different cars including some german cars as in BMW etc, has issued a recall going back decades ago. It was in the Wheelie section of the Times.



It seems that if the bag goes off the metal can that holds the air bag explodes sending metal shards out into the car, Either manning or killing the individual sitting behind one of these defective airbags. Has to do with moisture leaking in the metal cup or something like that. Quite frankly I did not understand all of it. My concern is did Porsche buy their air bags from this company and are we sitting with a time bomb readey to go off? How do we find out who Porsche boughtt their airbags from? And how do we get this fixed?



Will Porsch issue a recall on our cars?

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[Ernie]

Great! Maybe time for one of those other steering wheels?

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[williamoss]

yes but there is another airbag in front of the passenger. So changing the steering wheel is only half the problem.

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[Ernie]

Excellent point. I'm in the 968 60%-70% of the time by myself, but you do have to consider the passenger as well! Hopefully someone will have some valuable input to your query.

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[fleetwood]

so far, looks like no porsches



http://www.autoblog.com/2014/06/23/airba...nd-toyota/

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[flash]

http://www.airbagresources.com/downloads...irbags.pdf



http://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/do-car...xpire.html

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[ds968]

   



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..

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[PorscheG96]

Is the procedure and part numbers for disabling the airbags on this site? I have that info and tutorial that I could share from when I did it.

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[Langley968]

One of the <acronym title='previous owner'>PO</acronym> of my 968 installed a small toggle switch in the center console to turn off the air bag. Problem is that I do not know which way is On or Off. Any suggestions for a quick test?

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[Chris Vais]

Sure, start car, set toggle, whack front end with baseball bat, you'll then know which direct is on or off as the case may be.

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[ds968]

I was going to suggest the mother-in-law test, but that would be cruel . Besides, we're talking about air bags not wind bags.

Parr rump pum , tissssss.



Must be a way to test which switch position is which - cut a small segment of switch wires coating and use an Ohm meter to figure out when the current going to the airbag is " hot " ?

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[williamoss]

Because of the safety issue here with possible Class Action Law suit down the road, i would like to suggest that this subjct not be buried in the site but perhaps be on the home page somehow.

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[94SilverCab]

The official position of this site is that you should not disable any safety feature of the Porsche 968 without being performed by a fully licensed and insured manufacturer's representative or an agent of said manufacturer after all applicable applications and legal procedures have been followed. There is no way we will accept any liability for folks disabling any safety features.



Cars used for racing have their own set of rules and safety features that may or may not be applicable to road use, check with you ruling body.



Frankly, if you are unsure whether your safety features meet the requirements it is time to take it to a professional.



Regards,



Jay

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[type968]

Question is do we have the glass to metal or plastic to metal seal for the squib. I wonder if ours are 10g a piece like a Ferrari <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/smile.png" class="smilie" alt="" />



Quoted from the internet on a Ferarri site, so take it as you will. http://www.ferrarich...-inflators.html



"It is a very sensitive subject that no one in the industry really wants to talk about. For a time, I was a part owner of, and involved in a supply company that made the initiators (squibs) that fire the airbags (turns the electrical signal into the first pyrotechnic event that begins the gas generation process for inflating the bag). Different airbag initiator and inflator makers used various propellants. Some of those propellants were very stable and moisture tolerant. Others weren't. I don't believe you can lump all aged airbags together and say they are or aren't safe. (The current major recall of inflators by Takata that now result in shrapnel may well be related to this very issue.) There is simply no data I'm aware of to understand the true scope of this issue industry wide. As a forensic expert, I have personally investigated an unintended deployment event (not in a Ferrari) of a more than 15 year old airbag that resulted in injury to the driver. The vehicle was stopped at a convenience store and the driver was using a cell phone when the driver's airbag deployed unexpectedly. The manufacturer settled with the victim in that case. Since Ferrari's are vehicles that are typically preserved and driven far longer (time-wise) than the typical vehicle, this situation should be anticipated by, and addressed by the manufacture, in my opinion. Personally, I'm wrestling with the question of whether or not to remove or replace my inflators, because as time goes by, they may become increasingly risky to have in the vehicle."

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[williamoss]

yes but can you remove them? What I mean is someone in a different topic here on our site a member mentioned how he tried to remove a part because the light on the dash kept going off, but then the car would not start. Flash pointed out I believe that the computer looks for all major parts and not finding on prevented the car from starting. So what would happen if you remove the airbag?

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[94SilverCab]

There are ways to circumvent the system, it has been done many times on race cars.



This is not a recommendation,



Jay

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[apex]

Count me in as one worried about these two twenty-year-old packs of explosive moldering away. And as I recall these are Gen1 airbags far more powerful than later models. Lots of stories of bags going off during races breaking the windshield.

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[apex]

Just thinking about the relative safety of bags vs belts. Flashes's link says 15 year old bags would be ok - ours are older. Fac manual says to check the airbag system every two years after 10 years. Whatever it means "to check".



http://www.amstat.org/newsroom/pdfs/whowantsairbags.pdf

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[ds968]

The majority of those 200 + airbag fatalities have been infants and children ( mostly under 5 years old ), according to insurance highway safety institute data. Furthermore, the great majority of those victims were either improperly restrained by seat belts, not wearing belts at all, or, in child seats facing the wrong way with their heads directly in the path of , and too close to the deploying airbag. Lesson : children do not belong in the front seat of any car !! Not to say that anyone wants to be in the other non-children segment of airbag fatalities, one single death is one too many , but the risk of being killed or critically injured by an early generation airbag if you're an adult is pretty low. But you'll get seriously banged up for sure, and perhaps suffer some skin burns as my friend has - does that justify removing an air bag which might save your life in a serious accident on the mere chance that it will deploy in a minor fender bender, or without any trigger because of some flaw , with the likely result of messing you up as if you'd boxed Mike Tyson for a couple or rounds ? Not me, I'll gladly take my chances with an airbag in the car .

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[apex]

DS - agreed. To be clear - I'm not questioning the efficacy of airbags - even early models. Mostly thinking about an aging car. Aging hoses or gaskets I can can maintain. Aging airbags I cannot. The airbag system is a black box one needs to accept on faith, and by the diagnostic that runs every time you start the car.

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