Could they steal my airbags?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Basildane @ Dec 15 2006, 09:51 AM) [snapback]362717[/snapback]</div>

I don't think the dealer service guys would do that.

 

Read what news? Please post links to three such stories.

I doubt it is an epidemic. It's far more likely that an overzealous journalist extrapolated an epidemic because one shop stole so many airbags. Don't believe everything you read, especially with what passes for journalism today.

That said, what can anyone do with your "alert?" What would someone do to prevent airbag theft? Nothing. How can one detect it? There would be an error code thrown, because the car tests the circuits. (If they defeat that wiring, then you may never know.)

If you want to verify whether your airbags are intact, go to a different Toyota dealership. Be prepared to pay for a few hours' labor for them to dismantle the dash and verify the presence of your airbags. (Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to work on or tamper with airbags yourself. You can be injured or killed by unexpected airbag deployment.)

 

I guess anything is plausible. I've heard of people stealing cars, then stripping them of everything, including airbags. I would think some sort of SRS warning would be on unless they could figure out a way of tampering with that as well

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Basildane @ Dec 15 2006, 09:51 AM) [snapback]362717[/snapback]</div>

I've never heard of this. It would be interesting to know whether the police statistics of accidents record whether any airbags deployed at the time. If they do, any widespread removal would gradually show up in the stats.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Basildane @ Dec 15 2006, 09:51 AM) [snapback]362717[/snapback]</div>

I've never heard of this. It would be interesting to know whether the police statistics of accidents record whether any airbags deployed at the time. If they do, any widespread removal would gradually show up in the stats.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rick Auricchio @ Dec 15 2006, 02:21 PM) [snapback]362954[/snapback]</div>

The problem with this is, that if you are paranoid about a dealership stealing your airbag, maybe the first dealership didn't steal it, but when you go to the second one to verify it's still there, they may be the ones who steal it.

Paranoia is a hard thing to live with.

 

Daniel, now I think you're out to get me

 

Back to the serious side of this:

The car does a self-check including the air bags. Are the thieves sophisticated enough to defeat this check?

Are authorized dealerships stealing airbags, or only independent garages? One of the reasons I go to the dealership for all service is that I have more confidence in their competence. Perhaps this is unwarranted, but I also trust my dealership more than I'd trust a random independent garage.

 

I think much of the airbag theft is happening on the street. Any garage or dealership has far too much to lose.

That patented invention is interesting. Technically, it doesn't prevent theft at all: it provides a way to detect that the airbag doesn't match the car. (Thus you'd know you got an airbag from another car, possibly a stolen one.) Basically, the patent works just like our Prius smart key system. The car and key match "codes," and they work together. If they don't match, the car won't start. The patent describes a very similar system: if your airbag or radio don't match the car, a light goes on (or whatever).

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem practical (which is why we haven't seen that 10-year-old patent in use.) We already know how expensive it is to replace the smart keys that get lost. In some cases, the ECU must be replaced.

It would be necessary to reprogram a replacement airbag to match your car. Then you'd have to make sure only honest people reprogrammed the airbags...

This of course, doesn't say anything about the thefts that happen. If people will buy parts, someone will steal them.

 

is this really something people worry about??? I guess Im used to living in an area where old women still walk their dogs alone in the dark at 11PM and people leave their front doors unlocked... It must be just awful on the rest of the planet compared to the rural and small-town simplicity of northwest Ohio... <_<

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rick Auricchio @ Dec 17 2006, 08:07 PM) [snapback]363594[/snapback]</div>

Why would a street thief take the time to install a fake airbag, or even close up the steering wheel after taking out the bag? I think your average thief would leave the scene immediately upon obtaining what he was after. Have you ever heard of a thief stealing a car stereo and then replacing it with a fake one and making everything look origonal?

 

This topic really stank of urban legend to me, but after some checking, it seems to stem from an mid-1990s State Farm study. Nearly all mention of it occurs in relation to insurers; there seemed to be almost no mention of it in mainstream media (after some initial reports in 1994-6). A consistent estimate of occurences is hard to find (i.e., State Farms cites NICB saying 50,000 a year, NICB makes no mention online, IIHS cites State Farm saying 7500 ).

As for dealers stealing airbags...that just doesn't make any sense. The worry is a dealer/repairshop would install a stolen airbag that they bought for $50 and charge you the price of new.

The recommended solution, if you're worried about a shop installing stolen airbags, is, after a collision repair, to check the repair invoice to make sure the replacement airbag module(s) was purchased from a Toyota dealer.

The IIHS give it a whole paragraph on this page:
http://www.iihs.org/sr/pdfs/sr3802.pdf
although their page devoted to airbags mentions it only in passing at the very end (under miscellaneous):
http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/airbags.html

State Farm on the topic:
http://www.statefarm.com/about/media/backg...heft.asp#target

NICB FAQ
https://www.nicb.org/pdfs/Airbag.pdf

Some more up-to-date information (halfway down page under "Deflating Airbag Theft")
http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/001417.html

The "5% of all claims being airbags" seems to date back to 1995:
http://tafkac.org/misc/airbag/airbag_theft_newman.html