[S-cars] Air bag replacement times...

[CyberPoet]

Well, James, a few thoughts...

1. If you replace the air bags, notify your insurer, as I am fairly
certain his pricing includes the fact that the OEM bags were set to
expire at 10 years, and replacing them should get you a 5% savings on
your insurance (which, unless your rates are abysmally high, won't get
close to the cost of the airbags, even over the next 10 years).

2. If you replace the air bags, make sure you buy new. Most Audi air
bags that are up for sale via the alternative channel (car repair
shops, ebay, etc) are actually bags yanked out of old VAG products and
have reached their shelf-life expectancy already. New bags are not
cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

3. I haven't heard anything about an Audi air bag extension, but Bob,
if you have hard info on this, could you please post the source? Would
love to be able to verify this.

4. Disposal: air bags are environmentally unsafe to dispose of in their
stock form, and contain chemicals that are extremely hazardous to the
environment. The EPA's guidelines recommend that air bags are set off
before disposal for just that reason (converts the chemicals into a
non-hazardous form) -- specifically, they recommend placing the bag
inside a 55 gallon steel drum and setting that off from a distance.
This has been a topic of discussion with my by one of my clients (one
of the US's leading plastic recycling consultants). With the number of
cars now being retired containing airbags, this is starting to become a
serious issue and may lead to mandatory regulations concerning disposal
in the future. If you do this, get a fellow list to hold a video camera
so we can all watch it on weekend theater :)

Cheers,
=-= Marc Glasgow

James wrote:

> So recently the little sticker under my driver's side sunvisor got me
> think=
> ing... so what are you suppose to do when these airbags get old?
>
> My car is now 10 years old, and the sticker says Airbags must be
> replaced a=
> fter 10 years...
>

To which Bob added on...

> As I recall, Audi has extended the life of the air bags to 15 years
> retroactively.  So you don't have to worry about it for another 5
> years....by which time you won't be able to buy replacement parts
> anyway ;-)