97 Pontiac Sunfire - needs airbags - $500 - go for it?

I’m sure it’s changed a lot in 20 years. The place that sold stickers to me was a little mom and pop place that rented trailers and stuff, I doubt they were even capable of doing repairs. Every couple of years their “inspection station” sign would disappear for a few weeks, so I guess they would occasionally get busted for selling stickers.

What’s wrong with a junkyard airbag? If the motor blows on a car and it’s towed the the junkyard, the airbag is automatically no good? A good half or more of the cars I see in junkyards do not have their airbags popped.

BTW, when I lived in NH (20+ years ago) I would bring the paperwork for all my cars to the local inspection station and buy a sticker for each one (they didn’t even pretend to look at the cars, which I didn’t have with me anyway). On Saturday mornings there would be a line of people buying their stickers, the “inspector” never even got up from behind his desk. You have to love the (lack of) government in the state of NH.

That has recently changed…All computerized now. They MUST at least hook up to the OBD-II which the data is saved and sent to the state. Personally I wouldn’t go to one of those places that you could BUY a sticker from (I knew of a few). They had them in NY also…especially in the remote areas where inspectors were very rare.

They MUST at least hook up to the OBD-II which the data is saved and sent to the state.

Well, if they are going to bother with inspections they might as well make them legitimate (I’m still glad I live someplace without this nonsense). Personally, don’t believe I’ve ever owned anything new enough to have a OBD-II (hopefully, I never will).