Side airbag deployed. No other damage. What now?

tkotwal

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2002 Protege5
I've got a 2002 Protege5.

Short version: My side airbag went off so now my driver's seat has a huge tear and the door panel is damaged. I'm wondering if I can replace the seat and door panel, or is there another way to fix it?

Long version:
Because of a bonehead thing I did some time ago (no need for details now), the driver side front door doesn't quite close right, and in the winter the door switch always registers as open. It's annoying but not a big deal, but it led to another bonehead thing I did more recently. Sometimes I'll slam the door after I get in and that will actually close the door switch, for that trip at least. On an extra cold morning recently (maybe related, maybe not), I slammed the door after getting in, and the side airbag deployed. Quite surprising.

So now I've got a huge tear in the side of the seat, no side airbag, and a damaged door panel where the airbag impacted the door. Any thoughts on what I should do? I was thinking that I might be able to find a replacement seat and door panel at a local junk yard. I'm not sure if I'd actually find those things, and if I do, I'm not sure if there is anything else that would need to be done or reset after the airbag was deployed.

As an aside, the car has 190,000 miles, it has rust problems (New England winters), and our family could use a larger more reliable car anyway. So I'm considering sending this car out to pasture, despite the fact that the engine runs just fine. Any thoughts?

Thanks!
 
That's a good idea. I'll do that.

Do you think it would be as easy as swapping in a replacement seat? Do you know if anything else would need to be reset, changed, etc. after an airbag is deployed? I'm not sure what that would be, but just asking if anyone has any experience with this.

Thanks!
 
I found this...





I'm pretty sure you can just swap in a different drivers seat.
Side airbags were an option and I think most P5's don't have them.

You could try disconnecting the harness under the seat to see if that sets off the airbag light... If it doesn't, then you could just put in any seat.

I'm almost positive that if you find a drivers seat with a side airbag, it will plug right in with no problems.
 
I'm guessing if anyone did deploy their airbag, they probably totalled their car and aren't on the forum anymore??

Good point.

Thanks for all your help and advice. I'll look around for a seat to swap in. The manual also says that I should replace the side air bag sensor as well, so I'll see if I can find one of those as well. That's assuming I can find a seat with an air bag. I bet you're right that most P5's don't have them, so those items might be hard to find.

The airbag light is flashing a code, maybe even two codes. I'll check them in the morning, and will look them up in the manual.

By the way, I haven't used the forum's for sale page before. Is there an easy way to filter by sellers who are near me? I can't find a feature like that. Shipping a seat wouldn't be worth it, so I'd need to find someone local. Also, do you know which facebook page TheSwapMonster was referring to?

Thanks again.
 
...That's assuming I can find a seat with an air bag. I bet you're right that most P5's don't have them, so those items might be hard to find...

You may have a hard time finding the parts you need or have to spend more than the car is worth to replace them.

You can probably just swap in an ordinary seat and remove the airbag module from your old seat, reset it somehow and set the module on the floor under the seat so that the computer thinks there is a functioning airbag.

Or,... You might be able to just simply rub the code,... even by just disconnecting the battery for ten minutes and your good to go ??

It would be nice to know if the rest of your airbag system is working properly with or without the airbag light flashing. I'm guessing the others will all work because there is a huge danger of the airbag deploying even when it's removed from the car.
Perhaps a full read of the Restraint section of the Service manual will shed some light.

On a positive note, you don't have to worry about your side airbag deploying again if you choose to try to "reset" it.

PS... You've got two electrical connectors under your seat. One for the airbag and one for the seatbelt switch.
 
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