Help/question with airbag deploying while idle

[tonybagosmashed]

I was on my way to work and at a red light STOPPED. My pass. side airbag deployed (huge bang) smashing the windshield. Im being told by the ins. adjuster that they need to investigate it saying they've never heard of this happening. Does anyone know if this has happened with the pontiac bonneville or was their a recall at some point for the airbag. I need to know something to understand what is gonna happen with my vehicle.

thanks for your help,

tony

[Mickey#1]

I seem to recall this happening to someone on another car forum. I believe they discovered the air bag module was sitting in a puddle of water. Post your year & someone will be able to tell where to find the module. I think they're under one of the seats, see if your carpets are wet.

[tonybagosmashed]

Originally Posted by Mickey#1

I seem to recall this happening to someone on another car forum. I believe they discovered the air bag module was sitting in a puddle of water. Post your year & someone will be able to tell where to find the module. I think they're under one of the seats, see if your carpets are wet.

1997 pontiac Bonneville SE 4 door. I gotta do something about that than cause thats the second major problem, if thats true, to do with the wet carpet. The first was the stalling problems I had. Wet Bus Connectors causing that. Yes it is wet under the carpets for whatever reason. Thanks for the response and hopefully now someone can verify if this is the problem for me.

thanks again,

tony

[Mickey#1]

I'm 99% sure the module is under the front passenger seat. His module was all corroded so it must have been wet for awhile. IIRC the other side deployed a few days later. If you're still driving it then you should probably pull the fuse until you can check the module. GM offered to buy the car for $1,500 but the owner thought it should have been worth $3,000 or more.

[tonybagosmashed]

This is very usefull info that I will let the shop and the ins, company know. Right now its sitting in a parking lot waiting for Allstate to give them the word to work on it. They are doing a investigation on it cause they never heard of that happening. I'm telling them it did happen and I need my car dammit....lol. Anyway I will look into that and see if that's the cause. You said it's under the carpet right? What a crazy place to put something that doesn't like water.

thanks mickey

[maxwedge]

Does this car have a history of being in a flood or severe water intrusion, easy to tell look under the dash and carpets for signs of a water line or mildew under the carpet, lots of flood cars were on the market, this is just what your Ins Co. is going to pursue, I'd beat them too it here.Ther SIRS module is under the seat or console just in the right place, I have seen this happen working as an independent adjuster, myself. There are no recalls or TSB's relative to this condition, other than the general knowledge of water intrusion into the module can cause multiple problems.

[tonybagosmashed]

Originally Posted by maxwedge

Does this car have a history of being in a flood or severe water intrusion, easy to tell look under the dash and carpets for signs of a water line or mildew under the carpet,

Yeah its leaking somewhere. You can smell the mildew near the carpet and yes you can see it when you lift the carpet. The ins co. is done witht their little investigation I spoke to him today so all is good. The guy fixing it is nervous about installing a new airbag and having it happen again so we'll have to figure something out for that. There wasn't much to the investigation I guess they figured the repairs were only to the airbag and windshield so they would cover it. We'll see how that goes. Now if I can only rid of the water problem.