Jesus Christ, My side impact airbags just went off while I was driving home, I'm in shock, Theres not a scratch on my car, no flat tire, I didnt hit anything and they just decided to go off all by themselves. I guess i'll call a dealer in the morning.

Being an ex tech I always read about people driving along and saying the airbags went off causing them to crash and thinking they were full of ****, I guess I have been corrected.

Scared the living **** out of me.

Not the first time this has been brought up about this car. Scary shiz.

Yikes! That is not good. Was it the driver or passenger side?

Holy **** man! I hope you're ok. MB has to take car of this issue for you. Not the first I've heard of this either.

+!..WOW!

Scott don't know if this is relevant but it seems there is an issue with the air bags system in our cars.
https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...-air-bags.html

Guess yesterday was a bad day for e55s in houston my car broke down and then your air bag issue.

+2. That is nuts. I haven't heard about this problem before.

Damn dude! I am glad to hear you are okay! I hope the NHTSA figures out what the problem is, if indeed there is a problem, and gets this corrected! I can't imagine how scary it would be to be just driving along and have an airbag go off for no reason!

WOW!! If that had happened to me I would have freaked out. Pics?

I got a chance to look at the car better, it seems there is some slight damage under the car just under the right side foot well so i must have hit something on the road, I didnt feel anything when it happend at all, I'll get some pics up later today but i will tell you if this is all it takes for the passenger side curtain airbag, read door airbag and the drivers seat belt to go off there is something wrong with the SRS system in these cars. I called my insurance company and started a claim with them.

There is a long thread here from a while ago about the same thing happening. There was also damage underneath the car. The sensor location has since been changed, iirc.

The NHTSA investigation is for all E Class steering wheel airbags only. They can fail to deploy in an accident. It's been only a handful and it happened in cars that had the steering wheel in the most extended position (small, short drivers.) Apparently the wiring pulled loose when the wheel was extended all the way. An easy fix with new wiring.

The side air bags are sensitive, they have to be. The crush zone is inches so there is not allot of time to get them deployed, in a Tbone crash. All the cases I have read and heard about have some foreign object damage under the car, one had a hole in the floorboard.
I would be pissed and scared s4itless if my side air bag went off, but I still prefer the bags to work on a hairpin trigger, just in case of the real thing.

Holy SH*T dude you and Shardul with issues! God I thought I was the only one in Houston!

The only one! Knock on wood but I've been through my fair share! I love this car! She has you on your toes!

Be nice and wash your own under-wear this time..

Maybe the earth`s poles are reversing polarity early..

Would you have had time to pull out your Glock and shoot the airbags before they fully deployed?

j/k

damn dude. did it leave a mess?

Good to hear that you came out of it ok. I probably would have wrecked had that happened to me while driving.

Good to see that there are quite a few AMG members in Houston

Glad you're ok Aus. That's nuts. Let us know how it all turns out. This probably wont be the last time it happens.

I'm glad you didn't get hurt.... that could've been a very dangerous situation. Please keep us updated with your findings.

I got kinda curious about side air bags going off and it turns out it's not exactly uncommon. It's been reported in lots of cars: VW, BMW, Honda, Ford, GM, Audi.

"An airbag sensor is a MEMS accelerometer. Airbag sensors measure deceleration, and can deploy due to the vehicle's undercarriage striking a low object protruding above the roadway due to the resulting deceleration. The MEMS moves in response to rapid deceleration, and this motion causes a change in capacitance, which is detected by the electronics on the chip that then sends a signal to fire the airbag."

They go off because of the deceleration, not the impact. That's why airbags sometimes won't go off if you're absolutely stationary and get hit by somebody. You don't actually need airbags then, but you need seat belts to keep you in the seat.

They are hundreds of reports of all kinds of car brands having their side air bags going off. And it's all been about hitting something underneath. Even when the owners claims they don't remember anything, there's some sort of damage when the undercarriage is inspected.

Air bags are little bombs with complex sensors, control units, and protected algorithms. And are never totally fail safe.

It could be worse: "In July, Honda Motor Corporation announced that it was adding another model, more model years, and many more vehicles to a recall of airbag inflators that could explode, pierce the airbag and shoot metal fragments into occupants’ legs."

Glad to hear ur ok.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHMQyb5QrgI