cybertronicify

Hello everyone. I am wondering if my airbags were repaired by a qualified person. My carfax report doesnt say if i was repaired or.not. but it does say side impact with airbags deployed. Car is not claimed totalled. A series of repairs were done at a mercedes dealer. I have attached a screenshot from my car fax.

cybertronicify

Screenshot

ibeforreal

It's easy enough to check it out. Just take off the door panel and you'll see the airbag right there. If it looks a bit scratched up then maybe it wasn't replaced.

wallyp

While it might be possible that a Mercedes dealer would be willing to take the legal liability for "repairing" a vehicle without replacing the air bags, I think that it is highly unlikely.

ibeforreal

I agree with Wally, don't think that is a shortcut a MB dealer is going to take.

cybertronicify

Okay thanks for that, to be safe i'll check it since its only the driver door.

BTW what do you guys think how much damage was caused? The carfax says side impact, and yes i can confirm the driver side wood trim doesn't line up with the dash. But since the airbags were deployed, doesn't that usually mean car totalled? The car has 50,000 miles on it when it had the accident back in 2006. Somehow the insurance company thought it was better to fix it than to claim total.

ibeforreal

The most expensive parts to repair on these cars are the suspension and engine/transmission. Since the damage wasn't in the front of the car then most likely non of those parts were damaged. Insurance companies will only total a car if the damage exceeds the value. The air bags in the doors are easy to replace.

Personally I am somewhat skeptical of CARFAX reports. Case and point, if a person's car is in an accident and he/she decides to repair it without using their insurance company then it would never show up in a CARFAX report. Therefore, a buyer would never know the car was in an accident unless they had it looked over by a very good body shop person.

cybertronicify

The repair might have been done in a small shop who does not report. I'm a bit concerned about that 3 year gap between the accident and the next report. It was my fault for not checking the carfax when i purchased the car used. I should have been sceptical about the price it was offered at. I'm going to take the driver door panel off and take a look at the condition of the airbags. Any tips on that? Like what not to touch? On the instrument cluster there is the SRS light, and it turns off after i start the car.

I'm going to follow this video, it seems to be pretty good.

The car did have a extended 100,000 mile warranty, which is probably why a lot of things were reported.

ibeforreal

Before you do anything with the airbag make sure the car has been turned of for at least 1/2 hour. I have been told that those airbag circuits can still be active for up to 15 minutes after the car has been off and that is why I would suggest 30.

If you have keyless go put the keys where they are not near the car. Matter of fact, make sure the keys are not in the ignition even without keyless go. You don't want anything accidently happening.

As far as the door panel is concerned it is relatively easy to take off. Once you get that off you will see the airbag sitting right there. I'll include a couple of pictures of mine that I took when I replaced my door lock actuator.

One picture shows just the door panel off and the other picture is with panel off and the moisture barrier off.

ibeforreal

Don't know why it didn't upload both pictures. Here is the second picture.

cybertronicify

Thank you John for the information and picture. I'm going to disconnect the battery as well. To play it safe, ill just leave it for an hour or two. The car doesn't have keyless go, but ill keep the key away from the car.

So that black box is the airbag right? And the black box has the moisture barrier covering it. So the order is like this, Metal door / Airbag / Moisture barrier / Door panel with leather and plastic.

ibeforreal

Yep, that black box is the airbag. You probably don't really need to remove it. I would just examine the surface. If it looks good then it's probably OK.

cybertronicify

Okay, ill see if i can grab a few pictures and date codes during the check up.

Just curious, if someone were to attempt to fool the SRS by doing something with the wiring. Is it something visible like cut and spliced wires or is it done by computer. Maybe STAR Diag?

ibeforreal

I would think that they would have to do it via STAR. Someone would really have to be very stupid person to try and do either.

The government takes airbags very seriously. That is why they are all over Takata. Most states have a similar law such as this:

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4549.20

cybertronicify

Yeah, i think the laws here in California are about the same. Hopefully no one tampered with the airbags, but ill get to checking the airbags tommorrow. Thanks for all the help John!

tusabes

Let us know what you find and take pics . On another Benz I saw, the door airbags were installed with anti theft screws and had to be drilled out .

Studies of cars involved in fatal collisions that had a prior accident history where airbags deployed show more than 20 % of those cars with airbags deployed in a previous crash are not refitted with working airbags

cybertronicify

tusabes, your right! the airbag is mounted with rivets... But the date code is August 2002. Maybe i got a airbag from another car? But the airbag is in good condition, it doesn't look used. Heres some pictures...

wallyp

Unless you have more info, the CarFax doesn't appear to specify that the driver's door airbag was fired. The system is smart enough to only fire the needed airbag or airbags, not all of them.

ibeforreal

Personally I think that airbag looks just fine. Now if there were screws in there instead of rivets I would really be concerned.

cybertronicify

The driver door's wood trim doesn't line up with the dash wood trim. The passenger door is fine. One thing i noticed was when i took the door panel off, It was missing a screw. The 3 main screws that hold the panel on, there was only two. The stickers on the driver side door are dated 12/2002, so it looks like the frame wasn't touched. From this i think a car hit the driver door only, then it hit the airbag making it deploy.

ibeforreal

A lazy mechanic dropped one of the screws and didn't bother to look for it.

cybertronicify

That might be true LOL! Still trying to find a way to access the accident report for the crash. Its back in 2006 so it might be pretty hard. Any leaders about that?

Now that i know the airbags work, i'm not so worried about it. BUt i'm still curious what happened to my car.

tusabes

If the car was sold in damaged condition at auction I've used

http://www.vininspect.com/en_us/

To see the auction photos of the Unrepaired car .
I don't know how to find accident pics if the car wasn't sold at auction , does anyone know?

cybertronicify

I just checked my VIN and the car was sold to a Acura dealership. Looks like it got traded in for an Acura. Mileage: 78,638 Price: $16,998

cybertronicify

It looks like the same owner who had an accident with the car, also had a good service record. Aside from the mysterious 3 year gap, there was a service performed very frequently. Up until it was given to an Acura dealership.