Has Anyone Replaced their out of date, non-deployed airbag inflators?

Cannot imagine that!

They may have extended the service life of the airbags on some models - maybe try a search, don't recall which models, but possibly 360/430/575 or that vintage.

 

Did the search for you and found the thread I thought of: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/456-550-575-sponsored-bradan/269812-airbag-change-interval.html

For your 355 it looks like it was extended from 10 to 15 years, but at this date they are still expired...

 

Saftey items should be the cheapest thing on a car to replace. Tell me who is going to poney up 10k to replace air bags and module in a 355 never mind the updated harness for 1700 bucks. People don't wanna pay full pop for tires, do you really think they will spill cash for something you can't even see?

 

If there were a generic source for inflators they'd get replaced on the nose and cheaply.

But to pay Ferrari tax.. that is a harder sell. Best way is to avoid accident in the first place..

 

I have a friend that operates a business, training first responders and others in the "business" about airbags and related safety equipment. As part of the training he fires an airbag that was removed from an old junked car. They still work.

I get the heebie-jeebies working around them. Not something you want going off unexpectedly.

 

This is an interesting subject, I have seen it here a few times. While I am sure that they have a service life specified I question how conservative that estimate is. I suspect it is VERY conservative to protect them from legal recourse but having little to do with common efficacy. There are a lot of 1980 Toyota's and the like out there. If an airbag is bad at 15 years it should be completely dead at 35 but that doesn't appear to be the case. The airbags still work and we don't see the companies nor service techs saying that they all need replaced.

 

When 1 drivers side airbag and 1 passenger side airbag are $9,000-10,000 new for the 360, you have to weigh the statistical probability of spontaneous detonation versus the risks if it does detonate, versus the litigation that is possible if it does. That's going to be 20% the price of a cheap 360! It sounds, at this time, like the risk of spontaneous detonation is quite small for the fleet. Unless I'm missing something.

 

This is one of those things that an aftermarket company should be able to really capture a lot of market share on IMO....I wonder what will happen if we get to the point where they mandate the certification or operational aspect of the systems when you sell the car or insure it?

Especially since the government mandated this extra stuff on the cars with this:

Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Exactly! If there was a generic unit that you could *plop* into place, connect and be good.

Fortunately, the airbag must be designed for the cars space, volume, distance, etc. to be properly configured for the vehicle. To get "certification" for redoing airbags, hazmat permits, and enough insurance.. Thus I doubt its going to happen. It could be worse though.. if they mandate that airbag standard, it woul dbe like the cash for clunkers program only worse. How many millions of cars couldn't be driven? How many Americans couldn't get to work to provide for their familys. I doubt will happen...

 

My 1997 Mercedes SL's airbag worked just fine after 17 years. A guy pulled an unannounced left turn into my lane and we collided almost head on. Sadly the SL was written off.
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I know from German car manufacturers that the recommendation to exchange the airbag after 10-15 years was only valid until 1992.
They all drop the recommendation from 1992 on.
Airbags will work during the life span of a car.
I doubt that Ferrari used special airbag inflators.

 

I can see 20 years from now the debates about changing the airbags being similar to the present 3 or 5 year belt change debates.

But in all seriousness having to replace all of the airbags in a car that 7 airbags would basically be cost prohibitive and would lead to an obsolescence of any of these cars.

 

In the F355 manual there is a sentence about having the magnesium-aluminum wheels X-Rayed every 10 years.

Ferrari of Houston had never heard of anyone actually wanting this to happen when I ask if they could do it. They could not, not did they know where to send them for this to happen. And these guys run a top quality Race Team {Le Manns, ALMS or whatever its called now}

 

You are probably missing an option d, which I think most will take (knowingly):
d. Leave airbags/inflators in place, expecting they will work as intended, although beyond expiration, accepting the low probability of them going off unintended or not going off when they should.

Personally, I am not sure your option "a" makes sense as the probability of them still working (and protecting you) appears far higher than them going off unintended, causing some form of injury (recoverable, most likely). This observation is based purely on anecdotal information. Quantifying those probabilities scientifically would probably go a long way to weigh the options properly, and perhaps convince manufacturers to take action.

 

It would seem that the question is really "will it still deploy?". Reading below one gets the feeling it's all in the aging of the ignitor or squib. Unintentional air bag deployment is an issue of the electronics not the air-bag per se.

Taken from Edmunds:

Car airbags are part of a vehicle's supplemental restraint system (SRS). They have been around since the 1970s and are now standard equipment on every vehicle. Since airbags were new technology then, a number of automakers erred on the side of caution when estimating their lifespan. The owner's manual on early-1990s Honda and Acura vehicles, for example, recommended a dealer inspection of airbags every 10 years.

"That inspection was simply a visual inspection and a confirmation that the self-diagnostic functions were working properly," says Chris Martin, spokesman for American Honda.

Mercedes-Benz, on the other hand, was a bit more conservative. The automaker installed airbag replacement labels on all vehicles sold in the U.S. through roughly 2002, says Diedra Wylie, a spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz. The labels called for new airbags at the 15-year mark. After 2002, Mercedes research concluded that the airbags it produced after January 1, 1992 would last the life of the vehicle, Wylie says.

"Advances in airbag module technology now ensure the lifelong, functional reliability of the airbags," says Wylie.

In pre-1992 Mercedes vehicles with airbags, the part needs to be replaced after 15 years. The vehicle's owner will have to foot the bill of roughly $2,000.

Does an Airbag Expire?
While some automakers have set time limits on when to replace an airbag, the actual components are extremely durable. The key difference is the type of seal used to house the airbag igniter, also known as the squib.

"Almost all squibs since Day One have used what is called 'glass-to-metal' sealing, which is the best for moisture protection," says Douglas Campbell, who is president of the Automotive Safety Council and has worked in the airbag industry for more than 25 years.

"Some earlier non-North American models may have used 'plastic-to-metal' seals, which would have passed the vehicle life tests, but are considered to be potentially not as robust in extreme testing," Campbell says.

Leo Knowlden, a field performance assessment engineer for General Motors, said that GM has used glass-to-metal seals on all its airbags since the very beginning. A plastic-to-metal seal is more likely to accumulate moisture over the years, Knowlden says. This can lead to corrosion of the electrical pins in the igniter and potentially lead to a less responsive airbag.

As proof of the lifetime durability of GM airbags, Knowlden pointed to a 1992 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study, where a rusty 1972 Chevrolet Impala was crash-tested and both the driver's airbag and passenger airbag successfully deployed. That Impala was one of the first 1,000 airbag-equipped cars made by GM.

And similarly, "airbags from 1990s vehicles are operating correctly in today's accidents," says Campbell.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) knows of successful deployments of airbags more than 30 years after production, says Jose Ucles, a NHTSA spokesperson.

The Self-Diagnostic Function
The burden of determining whether a car airbag is working properly isn't on the vehicle's owner. Nearly every vehicle equipped with an airbag has a diagnostic function and an SRS indicator light that signals when there is a problem.

"When you start your car, the SRS light comes on a short period and then goes off as the self-diagnostic is completed by the computer," says Martin. "If the light either never comes up [at start-up] or comes on and stays on, then it can indicate a problem with the system."

In GM cars, the self-diagnostic function checks the system 10 times a second, says Brian Everest, GM's senior consultant for major accident reconstruction.

The Modern Airbag Era
Knowlden defines the modern era of airbags as the period starting in the late 1980s, when federal legislation was proposed to make airbags mandatory. Dual airbags were required on all new cars beginning with the 1998 model year. Light trucks followed a year later.

Edmunds contacted Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo for this article and all confirmed that their current airbags will last the life of the vehicle. Replacement labels and recommended dealer inspections are largely a thing of the past, carmakers say.

"Now that we have many years of experience with the self-diagnostic systems, the dealer inspection is not really necessary," Martin says.

Airbag Tips for Consumers

If the SRS light in your car has come on or gone dark, take the car to the dealer as soon as possible. Unlike seatbelts, which sometimes have lifetime warranties (as in Honda vehicles, for example) car airbags only are covered by the new-car limited warranty.
If you have an airbag-equipped car from the late 1980s to mid-1990s, make sure you check the owner's manual to see if the automaker calls for an airbag replacement or inspection. If you don't know where the manual is, our story, "How To Find Your Car's Owner's Manual Online," can help you track it down. Other places to check for airbag information are on the driver-side door jamb and on the back of the sun visors.
Make sure you check the SRS light on a used car when inspecting it for purchase. Make sure you also check the seams of the airbag modules to see if anything looks misshapen or out of place.
NHTSA has warned that since 2009, authentic-looking but extremely dangerous counterfeit airbags from China have been illegally imported to the U.S., where they have been offered for sale online and might have been installed as replacement airbags by some unscrupulous collision repair shops. Car owners should be cautious both in choosing a collision repair shop and in confirming the source of parts used in the repair, NHTSA warns.
The only replacement airbag that can be guaranteed to be safe is an original equipment unit purchased from the automaker through a new-car dealership. There are no legitimate "aftermarket" airbags from third-party suppliers, experts say. But automotive recyclers retrieve never-deployed airbags from scrapped autos and sell them as replacement parts to collision repair shops. It's perfectly legal, but some critics say the practice can be dangerous and caution consumers to shop carefully.

Trust the Automakers
In the early years of airbags, their reliability was based upon lab simulations, and carmakers cautioned owners accordingly. But now vehicle manufacturers are more confident, Campbell says. They have produced millions of airbags and have more than 25 years of real-world experience.

 

"c:" Seriously! I hope you're not intimating a class action lawsuit? *barf* ANOTHER lawsuit that gives plaintiff attorneys a "reasonable fee" of $3,210,100 and each participant in the suit a $5 coupon voucher towards a new airbag? Please. Count me out. Another ****ing lawyer looking for a payout with no change to the industry. My 986 wasn't covered in the Porsche class action lawsuit criteria, even if it did fail 1 day before I sold it. So what change did that effect in the "industry"?

With this experience that you've had. What samples have been taken that SHOW rates of degredation of Azide? What is the rate of accidental/unintended detonation of the airbag? Of 5,000,000 airbags fitted in the last 5 years, is it 100 airbags that have spontaneously deployed? Pardon my ignorance but stupidity behind the wheel has a higher mortality rate.
I know.. I know.. when its my airbag that goes off.. Statistically, it won't. And I'm willing to take that chance personally. I guess when a relative is walking park and a meteorite hits their head, it might make someone wear a helmet all the time right?

 

I am on DRIVE THE CAR and ENJOY LIFE behind the wheel of a Ferrari.

Its a used car, used cars have maintenance requirements, cant maintain the car ? buy a car with a warranty.

Its NOT in any way the car manufacturers responsibiilty to maintain the car for you after a reasonable X years of warranty.

Leave me out of any suit trying to screw Ferrari over on this.

p.s. by the way gunpowder has a centuries shelf life (unless it gets wet of course), the propellant in air bags is basically a form of gun powder so I will go with the belief that the air bags will work for as long as the car is on the road and a few decades past that in the junk yard. The suggested replacement time period was done by a lawyer with no technical reasoning, just CYA. yeah yeah, go ahead tell me otherwise, its what I believe and will continue to believe.

 

Pulled the air bag modules out of my 20 year old " Swedish GM" recently. Put them up against a wall. Connected wires to them and then to a car battery. They went flying in an entertaining, violent explosion.

 

Are you going to investigate the controllers also? sensors? and the seatbelts?
One item does not substanitate a system you surely know there is more to the system.....ive never had an older car airbag fail before...so ill go the opposite of you..
just my 2c..