I have under 50,000 miles and my air bag sensoe light on the passenger side came on. The estimate to fix is $9472.11. What are my options?
Has anyone filed a complain with the federal government on the safety issue?
Has anyone talked to an attorney to explore their options?
Any help would be appreciated
Number one option: Second estimate.
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9.5k? You sure they didn’t offer that for the car?
Sounds like they didn’t want to take the job to me. I agree 100% with the above post. Take it somewhere else
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That might explain why I can find almost 400 of them for sale under $10,000
Things break. Mileage doesn’t always matter. The repair price seems very high but I know very little about the car or the problem or the shop you got the estimate from. Get a second estimate. You may be forced to decide to fix it, sell it, or ignore it.
Many Nissan and Infiniti models require the seat to be replaced to fix the occupant weight sensor. I would think that a non dealer shop might have a work around, but I don’t have any specifics.
It’s the seat sensor? And not the airbag?
Get a couple more estimates and let us know what happens.
Even so, nearly $10k to replace the seat seems absurd, even if this is a power seat with leather upholstery. Also, there must be some way to simulate what the sensor is supposed to read when the seat is empty, in order to keep the warning light off if this is required to pass a state safety inspection. If no inspection is required, I’d just ignore the light and have everyone wear their seat belt, which they should be doing anyways.
What you’re talking about is tampering with a vehicle’s safety equipment . . .
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And??? I can’t imagine that a 2011 car with a non-functional passenger side airbag is any less safe than a car or truck from the early to mid 1990s, which only had a driver’s side airbag, and would pass the state safety inspection as it sits. Regardless, when you have to renew your plates, you “do what you gotta do” to squeak by.
This is really no different than disconnecting the battery on a car with persistent emissions code(s) and attempting to drive in such a way as to keep the problem monitor(s) from running long enough to pass emissions. Is it technically “legal”? Who knows, but people do it all the time. Of course, a licensed business isn’t going to assist with such activities, but as a DIYer, you can certainly do it.
You’re right. They are both illegal. The example you give won’t fool the emissions test system. A real tail pipe test will find high emissions levels. An OBD-II test may not find codes, but it will see that there are not enough drive cycles if battery was disconnected, and fail it on that count.
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More and more we face situations where failure of high tech components are so costly they virtually make cars, especially late model exclusive cars, yard ornaments. And of course those Astro vans just get more and more attractive.
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And what if you tamper with the car’s safety equipment, pass the upcoming safety inspection, and then conveniently “forget” to tell the next guy what you did when you sell the car the next month . . . ?!
Maybe I should consider picking one up at auction, when our fleet finally phases them out?
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And no shop or mechanic would ever do such a thing for a customer.
Last house I had there were 8 smoke alarms and 3 carbon monoxide alarms that were tied into the security system. I absolutely hated having to change the 9V batteries all the time, but leaving the batteries out would set a fault in the security system. So I disconnected/bypassed all the smoke and CO alarms so I would never have to deal with it again. Simple easy fix. My house, my problem. But can you imagine any professional giving the general public advice on how to do such a thing? Of course not.
I used to drive an Explorer. I hated the seat belt light and chime being on all the time, so I fooled the car into thinking my seat belt was buckled when it wasn’t so I didn’t have to wear it. But when I sold the car I put it back to normal.
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This week we had an 8 year old car come in with complaint of defroster only blows cold air. I checked it out, wrote and estimate for $2400 to fix the heater. Customer said “Oh, that’s $400 less than the Nissan dealer quoted. Let’s go ahead and fix it.”
Since you’re presumably removing the entire dash . . . may I presume your estimate also included replacing the ac evaporator and txv?
When I replace a leaking evaporator or heater on one of our fleet’s vehicles, I always do both at the same time. Assuming there’s no problem with the new parts, I can rest assured that particular job won’t be due again for several more years, at least not on that particular vehicle
Well the car doesn’t have an engine. It’s a Leaf. It’s not a conventional A/C system, it’s a heat pump kinda like you have in your house. But the problem is not directly related to that. It needs a Positive Temp Coefficient heater element, the electric grid that provides heat when the heat pump can’t.
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Just to be clear, I am not a professional mechanic, I do not work on other peoples’ vehicles at any time, and I am not a car flipper either. I only work on my own vehicles, which means I don’t have to worry about customer complaints or liability. I keep my cars until they are fully used up, and the next owner–a junkyard–isn’t going to care about such things.
I personally would do nothing at all to a car which has a persistent SRS trouble code, and needs anything more complicated than a used airbag module and/or wiring harness repair in order to correct the problem. I certainly would not spend thousands of dollars, let alone nearly $10k to correct this type of problem. Of course, I live in a state where there is no “safety inspection”, and I require everyone to wear their seat belts at all times. If the state did require a “safety inspection”, I would not hesitate to defeat the SRS light in order to renew my plates–either by simulating whatever resistance the sensor is supposed to see, or if that is not possible, then by modifying the instrument cluster itself so that the light goes on for a few seconds at startup, and then goes out like the inspector needs to see.
I have owned and driven many cars which never had airbags to begin with, and this was not a problem. Also, I frequently see used cars for sale where there is obvious repaired damage from a past accident, and the driver’s and passenger’s airbags went off, and the covers are now held together with duct tape.
Poor comparison of not wanting to pay a lot for repair? Elec Heater on leaf vs airbag system part? You need heat in winter. You don’t need a pass airbag unless you fail inspection or sell it.