Complete Air Bag System Replacement for PTC

I have a 2001 PTC, 5 speed, 61k miles, only owner. No accidents or
hits. Extended warranty (4yr/50k) expired in Feb 2005.

In June 2005 my air bag light stayed on and chimed when starting. Went
to a local dealer. Diagnosed problem as bad harness. Said that only
the passenger side air bag would not deploy. Estimated $700-800 range to
fix. I declined due to lack of money at the time and that I rarely had
a passenger.

In Aug 2006 decided to have it fixed as I might sell the car early next
year. I went to a second dealer. They diagnosed same problem. Gave me
option of harness replacement at around $800, or to hardwire it for
$338. Went with the second option. 6 weeks later in Oct air bag came
back on intermittently. Went back to dealer (90 day warranty on
repairs). Since the light was not on at the time I brought it in the
second time, they could not diagnose the problem, but did confirm that
the air bag fault codes were in the computer to show that air bag light
had gone off since the repair attempt. They told me to come in when the
light was on. Did this yesterday over three weeks since second visit.
They gave me an estimated repair cost (parts, labor, taxes) of $4900 or
$4600 when subtracting my previous repair costs for this problem. They
reset the computer fault codes and that light is off now. But for how
long? I was told by dealer two’s service department that when the air
bag light is on, none of the air bags would work in a crash. Not a
pleasant thought.

What should I do about this? I think this is absurd. A major safety
system failure that requires about ¼ of the value of what I paid for the
car new. The service department admitted that they were only eight of
one of the required parts in Chrysler’s entire parts inventory and that
this failure was unheard of by him.

I feel I should not be stuck for this much to repair a manufacturer
fault. Does anyone know the name/address of the regional Chrysler
manager? I live in Las Vegas Nevada.

Thanks for any help and suggestions.

 

In the back of your owners manual

 

Does Nevada have a "lemon law?" I think that the best that you could
hope for would be arbitration, if it is offered in Nevada. Even if they
side with you, the best that you could hope for would be for Chrysler
to buy it back. If they do, they will do so at "fair market value."
This would not be fair since the vehicle may be "unsellable" with a
malfunctioning air bag system. They would also deduct an amount for
mileage driven since they would argue that you have gotten "x" number
of miles out of the vehicle.

There may be some legal avenues to explore too. I will let those that
are legal savy respond to that possibility.

-KM

 

Doh! Guess the obvious is not always the first place to look. Thanks.

 

Some people don't like airbags. Try selling it to someone like that.

 

what is the airbag fault ocdes??

 

If you paid via credit card for the first repair I'd file a chargeback
with the card company and let the shop take me to small claims court.
They would lose. A warranty is a warranty. If they cannot honor it,
they have to refund your money.

The $4900 is a "go away and stop bothering me" quote. If they had
originally told you either $338 or $4900 then that would be one thing.
But they didn't. The deal you now need to make with them is
"give me my $338 back and I'll go away and you won't
have to deal with this repair, or I'll sue you" I would bet they would
take it.

Why? The air bags do absolutely nothing if your wearing a seat belt.
In fact, given a choice between being saved by an airbag and being
saved by a seat belt, your going to suffer a LOT more damage to your
body from the airbag.

Gee willikers, what did they do before air bags? Wow I guess
everyone died in car wrecks!!! Sheesh!!!

Air bags are not a major safety system. They only protect people
who are too stupid to wear seat belts, who arguably we would be
better off if they were removed from the gene pool as a result of
getting killed in car wrecks.

Seriously, your making a mountain out of a molehill. Did you know that
there are car crashes where the airbags didn't deploy but they
should have? Are you really going to trust your life to an air bag
computer?

Frankly, I question the entire diagnosis. Obviously the fault is in the
passenger airbag, right? If so, then a simple test would be to unplug
the passenger airbag, and put in a resistor that would simulate the
air bag ignightor then drive it around for a couple of weeks and see
if the light came on again. That hasn't been done, why are they so
sure its the harness?

I'll bet that some tech scanned the air bag computer, got passenger bag
fault, unplugged the passenger bag, tested it with an ohmmeter, got
continuity on the ignightor, and said "it must be the harness"

You could just as easily have a vibration-senstive ignitor in the air
bag itself that is going intermittent. Or a bad air bag computer. Or
bad contacts on the plug at the bag computer. There's a lot of much
more likely things than the wiring harness.

Your only going to get stuck for that if you agree to pay it. And this is
the same repair shop that did a warrantied repair that failed within the
warranty time, and is now trying to stall you until past the warranty
period it looks like. And your going to trust them with another repair?

Ted

 

dude you have the wrong info about air bags! and alot of cars have
pretensoners so that when a airbag deploys the seat belt places you in the
proper position in the seat so it does not snap your neck when it does ignite
the seat belts are a integrated part of the passive restraints system that's
why they are called safety restraint system (srs)
and now with side bags systems it's even more important to be bucked in
when i was in high school a friend and i was racing a mustang with a cougar
and after we won the drag we came into a corner to fast and went side ways at
90 and (we were told later that we were on 2 wheels) i looked out the pass
window only to the ground 1 foot from the window, had i not had my belt on i
more than likely would have fell out. so since then i have worn seat belts
even before it was a law.
3 years ago i was driving down a main road and due to anything beyond my
control i had to rear end the back of a truc with my dakota and the at 50 it
was quite a hit and without my belts and airbag i would not be typing this so
i have first hand knowledge what can happen. i was able to get out and walk
around with only cuts on my hand were it went thru the windshield
better get your facts right