Get rid of the old bag?

[Cap'n Carageous]

My airbag is out of date according to the door jamb sticker. Are there any Federal or Georgia laws requiring replacement? Can it be eliminated and a custom wheel installed. A friend of mine owns a body shop. He says that the government has plans to "condemn" vehicles with old or altered airbags. I would hate to see an airbag effectively "total" an otherwise good car!!

[Michael]

The interval has been extended to 15 years by MBZ. If you like, you can get an updated sticker from your dealer with a revised expiration date.

[mbdoc]

Michael is correct! the service life of the air bags have been extended to 15 years. MB issued a bulletin in 1993.
Only cars made from 1984 thru 1987 have bags that MAY or MAY not protect you in an accident.
NO laws as far as I know about replacement.

This means my '86 300E should have the bag replaced. What is a ballpark figure?

--Craig

[mbdoc]

Mercedes is trying to get money back from the US!!! LIST price is $1,860. IN Germany the list is under $1000.

The other $860 is probably the liability insurance premium for our litigation-happy country. Hopefully, no one will sue me for making that statement!

I know that some euro vehicles (e.g., VW) use a smaller "face" airbag than their U.S.-bound counterparts. I wonder if DB subscribes to this practice and thus, in part at least, the price difference.

[apb]

As I like to say:
"Lawyers don't sue people, people sue people . . ."

[Ashman]

If there are no laws saying you have to keep one in there after it expires, then why not go for anice aftermarket wheel at that point...

But if you want another, I guess its one of those Well Damned expensive parts.

Alon

[pmizell]

Thanks apb, couldn't have said it better myself.

~Paul

_________________
'91 300E, 204,000 mi

[Cap'n Carageous]

I would like to replace the wheel with a nice wood and leather spoke wheel but I'll wait a while. Right now I have to buy a trans and rework my head/ timing chains!! I just wasn't comfortable thinking there was an out of date explosive device inches from my face. Now I'm good to go until july 2003!!

[c43amg]

Exactly what are the risks of an out-of-date airbag?

Is it (a) a risk of failure to demploy in an accident (the functional equivalent of getting a nice wooden wheel without an airbag) or (b) the risk of erratic untriggered deployment when there is no accident (which might well result in one)?

If (b), how likely is such a failure? I think I could probably live with (a).

[pmizell]

I would imagine these numbers given by MB are very conservative for liability reasons. I'd go out on a limb and say that these airbags are good for the life of the car, however long that may be (30+ years?) but don't quote me on that.

~Paul

[Cap'n Carageous]

My major fear is random deployment. My second concern is the degradation of the bag itself so that it wouldn't contain the explosion. And, if you lived through that, would you have to replace the bag. These old 80's 300's are getting down to around $5000 in value. It wouldn't take much damage added to the cost of the bag to make it financially irresponsible to repair the car.

[meek]

I just bought a 190E 2.3-16 which just happens to be 15yrs old. I am not really worried about the bag, but am actually happy it has a 15 year 'life'. This makes it all the easier for me to let the shop know why they should remove it and replace it with a beautiful Momo

Meek