[magicman320]

On my way to the mechanic to change the front drive shaft. 5 blocks away.

No Accident.
Spontaneous Simultaneous Airbag Deployment!!
All but the steering wheel, front passenger and passenger front door......
SPEECHLESS, HEADACHE......THEN TEARS.

Deplore and Kajtec1 warned me not to drive it.......

Board....take it easy on me

 

[Deplore]

That is truly unfortunate, and I hope you or no one else were injured. Those airbags can give some serious friction burns.

If I were to take a guess....the driveshaft with the missing needle finally gave away and hit the transmission tunnel.

There is a sensor in the SRS module that monitors for any form of serious shocks. I don't remember the exact value, but it is in excess of 2G. I would venture to guess that you now have a driveshaft lying on the floor, and a hole in the transmission housing.

I wish you the best luck in getting her back to condition...but it's unlikely. The insurance will total the car, as these airbags are very expensive to buy new.

 

[magicman320]

Actually there was nothing on the ground. Nothing dropped.
I had Triple A come get it and turned around on the same road and took it back to the front of the house...smh
Just put in a new fuel pump, battery, radio and brakes.
I will call the junk yard tmrrw. There is no way I'm replacing all those airbags:-1:

 

[Hotrodelectric]

Talk to your insurance agent first. Usually, yes the car will be totalled, but that's because your insurer, seeing the bags blown off, is assuming hidden body damage they don't want to mess with. I forget the exact number, but normally those will fire at 22 or so MPH with an impact. You had no such impact, and it would be fairly easy to prove.

Much more likely you had an electrical fault that shorted some impact sensor wiring together. It's going to be difficult to find, but it can be done.

 

[Kajtek1]

Let us know when you figure out what exactly happened?
Coming to air bags, early W124 owners had only 2 of them to start and they proved not to work after 20+ years.
Would I like the car with no air bags? Nope, sold mechanically admirable W123 for lack of airbags and ABS.
But it is personal choice.

 

[magicman320]

Insurance already totaled it last year from a rear ender. I' don't think they are going to give me a penny.
I'm going to try to find one that I can swap some parts with. At the same time I want to part it out. I'm only looking to get about 1000 bucks out of it.

 

[dude99]

Coming to air bags, early W124 owners had only 2 of them to start and they proved not to work after 20+ years.

Where did you hear that? To my knowledge (and according to my time spent on the W124 forum) there hasn't been a report of a w124 airbag failing to deploy.

 

[Kajtek1]

There was a member on W124 that had accident and the bag did not deploy.
It wasn't even the oldest model, I remember the bag at the time was less than 20 years old.

 

[saphiro]

There was a member on W124 that had accident and the bag did not deploy.
It wasn't even the oldest model, I remember the bag at the time was less than 20 years old.

For what it's worth, I stupidly rear-ended someone with my '86 560 SEL in 2011 and the front airbag didn't deploy (it only had a single driver's side airbag). The car was 25 years old at that point, so I didn't expect it to.

 

[dsmith]

Why don't you just remove the deployed arbags, if there is no other damage? They should be replaced after 10 yrs anyway and the system inspected, if you are truely concerned about their function when needed.

 

[in2dwww]

I've always been told airbag deployment is what will happen if the flex disc goes bad. It's unfortunate that this happened. Are your ears still ringing from the deployment(s)?

 

[Kajtek1]

but, but

look at it from positive side.
15-16 years old airbags still work good.

 

[Simon_E]

Why don't you just remove the deployed arbags, if there is no other damage? They should be replaced after 10 yrs anyway and the system inspected, if you are truely concerned about their function when needed.

No, they shouldn't. Per MB, neither replacement nor an inspection of the airbags is necessary in these cars

 

[Hotrodelectric]

No, they shouldn't. Per MB, neither replacement nor an inspection of the airbags is necessary in these cars

IIRC, the ten-year replacement need was for the earlier airbag cars. I remember seeing the advisory sticker on W140s we were stretching and armoring at Classic.

 

[Deplore]

No, they shouldn't. Per MB, neither replacement nor an inspection of the airbags is necessary in these cars

On my E300, there is a sticker on the door saying that the airbags should be inspected and replaced by 2014.

 

[magicman320]

I've always been told airbag deployment is what will happen if the flex disc goes bad. It's unfortunate that this happened. Are your ears still ringing from the deployment(s)?

No, but I'm having mini flashbacks of them deploying. I just sat there for 3 minutes asking myself " WTF just happened?

 

[magicman320]

Why don't you just remove the deployed arbags, if there is no other damage? They should be replaced after 10 yrs anyway and the system inspected, if you are truely concerned about their function when needed.

I've been seriously thinking about trying to repair her. I found a donor I'm going to check out tomrrw. Its a pre-facelift but if I'm not mistaken the door panels are the same. Just wondering what i could do with the top curtains that deployed. It looks so scary in there. Maybe i can just cut them out....smh
Any suggestions or anything i should know before attempting this?

Thanx in advance

 

[Kajtek1]

I am afraid if you cut off airbags, you will have constant SRS light and what worse, likely that will disable whole system.
Did you ever get to the bottom what created the impact?

 

[Deplore]

Usually when the airbag goes off, the SRS module is rendered unusable, and needs to be replaced. The module is basically one giant capacitor that stores electricity, and on the event of an accident (also when the battery is disconnected in the said accident) it discharges all stored electricity, burning itself out. The SRS module, all airbag squib plugs are one use items.

Safe to say that there is no functioning airbag system going on at all.

 

[Simon_E]

On my E300, there is a sticker on the door saying that the airbags should be inspected and replaced by 2014.

Yes, there are these stickers--there is one in my car as well. But they were rendered obsolete by this:

http://www.benzworld.org/forums/r129-sl-class/1521284-airbag-expiry-date.html#post4153590