" How long are air bags supposed to last?"?

Question

I was answering a question about a 1995 Nissan air bag system and this thought came to mind. Used to be when the bags first came out Manufactures said replace the bags at 10 to 11 years? Now Manufactures shy away from air bag questions for obvious reasons. Imagine expecting the bag to work properly and it is rotten and sends burning nylon shreads into your face.

OK I will check the NTSB website. There has to be someone who actually knows if a 1992 car air bag will safely deploy in a crash or a 1985 Mercedes Benz 500s class?

Heat Humidity abuse all the problems that can happen inside the car even the plastic getting old and brittle?

Overall durability not deployment time. What do you tell your customers with 16 to 22 year old cars to do with that old bad if you replace another air bag part? Like a spiral cable or crash sensor for a flashing air bag light

OLDSGM has the same concern as I do I just E-mailed the NTSB for information about air bag longevity. What do you tell your customer in hot and humid climate will the air bag actually work out at 15 years 20 years?

"NTSA" NTSB wrote back and provided me a web site For NTSA and I will follow up shortly after 5:30 CST 10/30/2007

National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration. I just E-mailed them to see what they know about Air bag life and replacement reccomendations.

According to manufactures the air bag needs checking every Ten Years connections trouble codes past and present and general visual checking.

Answer 1

That is the best question I have ever seen on this website.

Airbags have been on cars since around 1990 (not sure exactly). A set of airbags, if you could get them, would cost more than the total value of most cars that are over 10 years old. I would not be surprised to one day find out some state inspection requirement would require you to prove the airbags installed in your vehicle have not exceeded some predetermined shelf or use life.

Think about it a minute, especially for cars in hot climate areas, the airbags are subjected to very high temperatures, if the dash pad cracks due to the heat, what is happening to the airbag? A car with the windows rolled up can reach 135 degrees +, how much of that heat is absorbed by the airbag?

I have been in Aviation Maintenance and logistics for over 45 years, most, if not all, aviation fabric/rubber seals and safety items have a finite life. I am sure as soon as one of these old cars in involved in an accident where the airbag failed some lawyer will sue someone because they did not establish a finite life for the airbags. The result will be safety inspections requiring airbags to be replaced at a specific time interval. The end result will be tens of thousands of older cars will be forced off the road. The new car manufacturers will just love it.

Answer 2

The entire system is suppose to last ( at least) 20 mili seconds longer than the car. that is suppose to hold true no matter how long Th e car lasts.
But as we all know air bag systems just like a clock radio will break. I believe that the shot shell that inflates the air bag should last over 20 years. I have seen them in 85 ish car in the junk yard as as recent as last week. By the looks of it the Olds had been on the road the entire time and was running like a top just before the telephone pole jumped in the way. The drivers side only airbag did deploy.
In any event if you realy want that air bomb to go off read the manual, and ask the Dealer! remeber that company does not want to pay 500K for an ugly face or 100g for a super model.

Answer 3

Hey JP - Good question.

To my knowledge, the more modern airbags (2nd-gen) are basically "sealed" in an airtight enclosure against moisture / UV. I did a 6-month stint as an accident investigator, and saw many older cars with deployed bags here in AZ... no issues. Other than the fact that they were crude (and somewhat brutal) in their deployment, the bags seemed to fuinction properly, even though they were a couple decades old. The heat and dry climate here may have been a plus, or maybe not...

Either way, I don't think there's a real concern, even for the earliest models, unless the manufacturer issues some sort of TSB or recall campaign.

Answer 4

If you look at the 'life time' or 'durability' of any product, you have to realize that you're looking at a probability distribution. There aren't any cut off points. You can take 1000 airbags and subject them to heat etc, and see how long they last and you'll probably get a normal (bell curve) distribution. Some of them will fail very early on, and some will last for 30 years. "Most of them" will fail "around" a certain time, but there are no guarantees even once you get that number. If you check out "Airbag Durability: A Performance Analysis of 6~9 Old Field Exposed Airbags" the background info says they are designed to last 15 years. So I'd recommend to people that they replace them after 15 years, or sooner.

Answer 5

I'm not sure, my thoughts on whom to question would be an insurance underwriter since airbags can usualy provide a discounted rate on insurance premiums. Another source of information might be a salvage yard thatis an automotive recycler, they may have an idea of the age of vehicle where the reliability of the airbag system and if there is a period of time that an undeployed airbag can be kept for reinstallation and or the age of a vehicl where the airbag may have deployed and was ineffective due to it's physical condition created by age or climate affected factors. A dealer service manager really ought to be able to provide this information or at least have the contacts to find out from. This is a very good question that I have often wondered myelf, I hope a good answer comes back to it.

Answer 6

There's no way anyone here can tell you for sure what the problem is with the information provided, but all of the new body style Volkswagens, including the Touaregs, have recently had many faults relating to the side airbags in the front seats. Most of these faults are fixed by simply bypassing the side airbag connector located under the seat with wire overlays. However, it could be any number of other things, crash sensors, seat belt latches, the passenger occupant detection system, the list goes on. I would get it checked out though as soon as you can, because in the event of an accident, the airbag system may not work as designed.

Answer 7

I'm sure that since they've beed around longer now they have a better understanding of how long they actually last and are still safe.

Answer 8

As far as Subaru is concernd they should be checked every 10 years

Answer 9

I believe the life of the car unless they are deployed and damage.