2011 Prius hit. Air bag did not deploy

It maybe a problem with the airbags, they recalled the ones that replaced the defective ones, so the new ones are defective as well, they are even saying that seatbelts may be recalled as well, i would contact toyota and see what could you find out you may have a lawsuit against toyota if you got injured.

 

The car doesn’t have to be moving, or even turned on, for airbags to deploy; see this video of a NHTSA side-impact crash test on a 2010 Prius, in which the car itself is stationary. You’ll also notice, however, that the impact from the test sled is quite severe, and the damage is much worse than that to your car.

Airbags aren’t meant to deploy in all collisions. As Toyota explains in the Owner’s Manual (PDF), on page 121, “The SRS side airbag and curtain shield airbag system may not activate if the vehicle is subjected to a collision from the side at certain angles, or a collision to the side of the vehicle body other than the passenger compartment.”

Deploying airbags can startle or injure the driver or passengers, so the supplemental restraint system (SRS) is designed to deploy some or all of the airbags only when its sensors have detected a collision in which they’re likely to do more good than harm.

Unless the repair was done improperly, no. The Technical Instructions for Safety Recall G0U (PDF) describe that repair, in which the airbags themselves shouldn’t have been removed or disconnected, even temporarily. Rather, brackets were added to keep pieces of the side airbag inflators from entering the cabin, if one were to crack open spontaneously. Nothing in the repair should have changed whether or not the airbags deploy.

This information might well be stored in the car’s event data recorder, described in the Owner’s Manual, pages 504–505. See also my March 2019 posting about Toyota’s EDRs.

An investigator would connect a crash data retrieval tool to the car.

That’s unfortunate. With liability in question, an adjuster’s out-of-hand refusal to gather potentially relevant information would seem to raise a question of bad faith by the insurance company, which usually has a duty to properly investigate claims.

Especially if you were injured, you may wish to consult a lawyer, before repairs are made or evidence that might be gathered from the car is spoiled. With lawyers who take personal injury cases on a contingency fee, there’s typically no cost or obligation for an initial consultation.

If the repair shop uses the Health Check feature of a Toyota Techstream diagnostic system to scan for diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs)—as Toyota recommends in Collision Repair Information Bulletin 2016-191, “Scanning for Electrical System Faults” (PDF)—this would cover the hybrid system. It would also help establish whether the SRS was in working order at the time of the collision.

Of course, the car might have been damaged in a way that wouldn’t cause a DTC to be stored until after the car has been driven a while, or at all, so there’s no substitute for a thorough inspection.

You’re probably thinking of the situation with other vehicles having the infamous airbags made by Takata, which have an unfortunate tendency to deteriorate, causing the airbag to produce shrapnel if deployed. Heat and humidity accelerate this deterioration.

 

The car will deploy air bags depending on impact location onto your car exterior, passengers seated location, speed, and etc to protect and not kill you.