Airbag

Hello,

This is going to be a little long as there is a lot of background... I
have a question for anybody who knows a little more about Tiburon's,
airbags, and maintenance. I have a 2004 Hyunida Tiburon that was in an
accident about 2 months ago. The accident was a head on collision and
all the damage to the vehicle was on the drivers side. I was all alone
in the car (i.e. no passenger, nothing on the passenger seat, etc.).
Anyway, the driver airbag did not go off, but the passenger side airbag
went off.

Ever since the car was fixed, the airbag light has been on, and I have
been concerned about the fact the driver side airbag did not deploy.
Took into the dealership today and was told they have no way of telling
me why the driver airbag did not go off, but insist it would go off if
the conditions were correctly met. So i asked them what type of
collision they felt the driver side airbag would go off in and they
described my accident! When I said that they then told me the car must
have not been going fast enough...so then why did the passenger side
bag deploy?? Then the guy got all defensive and told me there was no
way they could explain why the driver bag didnt go off.

So my question is, does anybody know if the passenger and driver air
bags are wired separately in an '04 Tiburon? (I know they are in some
models). If they are wired separetly and can in fact detect if you have
a passenger, then should the passenger airbag simply not have gone off
at all? Does anybody also know if it is possible for dealership to
determine if the driver airbag is in fact functioning correctly? Cause
I have had serious problems with that dealership in the past lying to
me... so I no longer trust them to tell me the truth.

Any help/advice/answers would be much appreciated.

 

The fact that the light was on after the repair indicates something was / is
wrong. From hmaservice.com: "With the ignition switch in ON or START,
battery voltage is applied to the SRS control module from fuse 5 to the SRS
indicator in the instrument cluster from fuse 4. When the ignition switch is
turned ON, the SRS indicator in the instrument cluster will flash six times.
If the SRS indicator does not flash six times, stays on or comes on while
driving, the SRS is not working properly." They should have been able to
retrieve whether or not the the SRS module tried to deploy the driver side
airbag during the crash. If it tried, and it didn't go, it could have a
defective squib (like an electric primer). Assuming you had the repairs to
the SRS system done at the dealer after the crash - whether or not the body
work was done there - then you should be able to talk to Hyundai an explain
your concerns about the fact that the SRS light was still on after you
picked the vehicle up, and what the dealer said about not knowing whether
there's an issue or not. They have a table that says what to replace given
what went off. That should tell them if it should ever be possible for the
passenger airbag to go off without the driver airbag.

 

Were you wearing your seat belt as is recommended when driving a car? If
so, that's probably the reason your air bag didn't go off.

The Tiburon doesn't have a sensor in the seat, so it assumes the front
seats are occupied. If the crash reaches the criteria-- Hyundai does not
specify to the dealers what these criteria are-- for deploying an air bag
if the occupant is unbelted, it'll deploy the air bag for the unbelted
passenger. Presumably, since there was no one in your passenger seat, the
seat belt wasn't buckled, and that's why the passenger air bag deployed.

If the crash reaches the criteria for deploying an air bag to protect a
belted occupant, which would be a more severe crash than one which would
only need to protect unbelted occupants, the system will deploy air bags
to protect both belted and unbelted occupants.

All the sensors for the air bag system which are used in a frontal
collision are located in the air bag computer, which is near the center of
the vehicle. The primary thing the air bag computer does is to measure
your rate of deceleration in a crash. If the rate of deceleration is too
low, one or more air bags may not fire as the computer may deem it's not
necessary.

The fact that your air bag lamp is on after the repairs suggests that your
air bag system wasn't repaired properly after the collision. Have you had
the vehicle checked at the dealer to determine the problem with the air
bag system? If not, you should do so immediately. While the warning lamp
is on, you should expect that your air bags will not operate at all.

 

Thanks to both of you for the replies!! Much appreciated!

I always wear my seatbelt, so yes I was wearing my seatbelt at the time
of the collision. I however do find it interesting that through the SRS
module you can determine whether or not the driver airbag did try and
deploy, since the dealership told me they had no equipment or means to
determine such a thing. I also find it interesting that the dealership
didnt seem to know how the airbag system in the vehicle worked enough
to even tell me that it doesnt neccesarily deploy if a seatbelt is
latched, but will always deploy if it is unbelted. By the sounds of it
that is something the service manager in a dealerhsip should know! I'm
sure they'll enjoy hearing from me now lol.

The airbag light is still on because a tensioner in the seat belt broke
during the collision. Needless to say I have very little trust left in
that dealership, and was quite pleased to hear that the body shop would
replace that for me instead.

 

Even if you have the body shop fix what's believed to be the current
problem, it would still be a good idea to have someone connected to Hyundai
check the SRS system with a scan tool - the right one - to make sure that
there's no other issues. If you don't like the dealer that you have had
issues with, this is something that would be worth driving to a different
dealer to have verified. If you look at hmaservice.com, there is a myriad of
codes this thing stores to tell what it's been up to, and what inputs it
thinks it has seen.

 

I don't recall the exact features of your car's computer, but some will
record deployments. I believe your car records whether each air bag
deployed and how many times each seat belt pretensioner has deployed, but
am not sure. If you have the same control module in your car that you did
at the time of deployment, the dealer should be able to retrieve some crash
information from it. If it shows that the driver air bag deployed, then it
attempted to deploy that air bag. If it shows the driver air bag did not
deploy, then it did not attempt to deploy the driver air bag.

Your seat belt pretensioner is not broken, it has deployed. The reason it
did so was to tighten the belt to hold you in your seat during the
collision. Since you had an air bag and seat belt pretensioner fire, you
should have had the following done to repair your air bag system:
-- replace passenger air bag
-- replace air bag harness
-- replace driver seat belt
-- replace air bag computer and mounting bolts
-- possibly additional repairs depending on what occurred with the air bag
system during the collision.

 

The scary thing about this is that it sounds like the SRS repair was done by
the body shop. He might be able to tell us differently, but the fact that
they're willing to touch the pretensioner leads me to that conclusion. As
you are probably aware, there's a big market for previously installed (I'd
say used, but no-one wants those) airbags, etc. when there should be none.
In most cases that an airbag deploys due to crash, there is insurance
company involvement. I'm sure that they want nothing to do with SRS parts
from an unknown source - we're not talking about fender panels here.... If
that's the case - and it looks like it because of the half-assed repair
where they didn't completely repair it - they probably never read the codes,
and probably never replaced all the recommended parts. The PAB blew, so
we'll replace that, or maybe even just fixing/replacing the dash where it
blew out from. Hey, the light is still on, so who knows what it's
complaining about. Could be that it fired the DAB, and opened the squib, but
the charge didn't ignite - yet, so they didn't replace the DAB.

He really needs to not let the body shop touch it. He needs to have it
diagnosed by a dealer, and let them figure out where to go. This isn't a
timing belt, or misfiring engine where anyone with generic experience can
try to fix it, at the absolute risk of causing mechanical damage if they
really screw up.

 

File an updated claim with the insurance Co. Your generic code reader will
not read SRS codes.
Needs to be done by a dealer

 

the problem isn't what the bodyshop did or didn't do with the car. The
airbag system was always supposed to be taken back to the dealers to be
looked at. This we did and found out whats wrong with it...sorta. The
problem is (and i apologize for this) the service people at the
dealerships where I am are incompetent.

The dealership insists they don't have the equipment to determine what
happened during the crash. They insist they don't have the equipment to
determine if the airbag did or did not try and deploy on the driver
side. Their exact words "we have no way of determining if the airbag
did try and deploy. Hyundai doesn't give us access to that module so we
can't tell you". I'd be happy to let the dealer diagnose the problem,
but they insist they can't do it. They don't even seem to know how the
airbag system in the Tiburon works! I had to ask everyone here to find
out!

The bodyshop however can do the repairs, and they are far easier to
deal with and more competent. The only thing that needs to be done
still is the pretensioner. I'm not quite sure what you mean by
replacing the airbag computer... I'm trying to remember if that was
already done. We personally know the people at the bodyshop, so in no
way am I concerned that they replaced the airbag with a previously
installed. The reason they worked on that system in the first place was
because the insurance company told them to. Insurance companies don't
like splitting claims across several people for repairs, and if they
did, I;'d owe another $500 to someone and frankly that dealership
doesn't deserve another penny from anyone on this planet. When you
watch 3 people before you leave the service department at a dealership
(in about a 20 minute span) asking to speak with the owner of the
dealership because they are angry and upset, you know something has
gone seriously wrong with the service department.

As for taking it to another dealership, we could... but its owned by
the same people and the service there (I've asked around) is equally
bad. This isn't the first time we've had problems with the dealers, and
as you can tell...I'm kinda just fed up. So where does that leave me?
With the body shop...

 

Ok...but the dealership told me they can't either! So what would you
suggest?

 

How far is a good dealer?

 

The dealership *can* read your air bag trouble codes or they don't have all
their required tooling.

The dealership *cannot* tell you with certainty whether your air bag
should have deployed. The dealership employs mechanics and technicians,
not engineers and scientists. The dealership can only retrieve the
information from the air bag computer that the scan tool will access. At
the very least, this will include trouble codes and whether a crash event
requiring at least one air bag deployment took place.

Hyundai does not release specific information about the logic their air
bag system uses to determine whether to deploy the air bags. In fact, the
information I've given you about how the system works is based primarily on
the inputs seen by the air bag computer and a logical analysis as to how
the air bag computer would probably use this information.

If you really want information on exactly when air bags are supposed to
deploy, you'll probably need to sue Hyundai to get it.

What is the body shop intending to do to fix your air bag system? What
trouble codes are stored in the air bag system? If your body shop cannot
answer these questions, they need to not be working on your air bag
system. For a list of what components are required to be replaced under
which circumstances, I'll direct you to technical service bulletin
01-90-013. You can see it at www.hmaservice.com. You'll need to register
for a free account, and the site requires Internet Explorer.

 

As Hyundaitech says in a later post, sign up for an account at
hmaservice.com. Print the relevant service instructions, and go back. In
particular, the idea that they can't tell you if driver airbag should have
deployed (which needs to be translated to: if it deployed to according to
the codes stored in the module, it should have deployed) is crap. The
correct question to them is "did the SRSCM log a Crash Record for the Driver
Side Airbag" If didn't deploy and the module said it did, then something is
wrong with the driver airbag, or the module (which HAS to be replaced if ANY
airbag deploys anyway). As Hyundaitech has said, there is no way to say if
an airbag should have gone off for a given accident. The algorithms used to
make that determination are not given to anyone. BUT... If the module says
it has a crash record for the DAB, and it didn't deploy, then something went
wrong.

Here's a few of the codes that a dealer CAN retrieve.

B1650
Crash Record (Replace SRE-HMC)
13

B1651
Crash Record Driver Side Airbag
13

B1652
Crash Record Passenger Side Airbag
13

B1658
Seat Belt Pretensioner deployed Six Times
13

B1660
Crash Record Driver Airbag
13

B1661
ECU Mismatching (Replace SRE-HMC)
13

B1662
Driver Seat Belt pretensioner Deployment Command
13

B1663
Crash Recorded Passenger Airbag
13



Also, note the following:

Crash Recorded, Crash Recorded LH/RH Side Air Bag (codes B1650, B1651,
B1652, b1660, B1663)

These codes indicate that the SRSCM deployed the air bags indicated. These
codes cannot be reset, as the module can only deploy an airbag one time. The
module will need to be replaced.The seat belts worn during the collision,
the wire harness, and the deployed air bags must also be replaced.