Unsolicited airbag deployment

Speaking with my insurance company I was told chances of writing off due to damage is slim as truck is still brand new and worth enough

 

They consider a 2 year old truck brand new? Well I guess thats good luck for you.

 

^Lol plenty of used Tacoma sellers seem to think so...

Side airbags tend to be more sensitive because they have about 1/3 the time to deploy as frontal airbags, due to the greatly reduced crush space. The fact Toyota put a button there means there's an "overlap" in the forces experienced while offroading vs. the responsiveness required for the airbag system to meet federal crash requirements.

Do you have a lift installed? A lift is known to screw with the truck's accelerometers resulting in VSC errors. Perhaps they can affect the rollover sensing logic as well.

 

I believe the insurance company. Bags are not enough to total a newer car with no body damage.

I rebuild wrecks, so I have an idea what it takes to total a vehicle.

You aren't close to getting your truck totalled out.

If you are bothered by the fact that the bags were previously deployed, sell the truck. Toyota trucks sell quickly and you won't lose too much money.

 

Not that this helps you but to validate your story a friend of mine had his front air bags deploy on his jeep in front of the high school one morning while driving 10-15 mph. Multiple people watched it happen. It was a late 90s Cherokee. Jeep wouldn't do anything for him even though there was zero front end damage

 

I have a level in it yes. I know there's a lot of unknowns. I'm frustrated with how hush hush they have been since the EDR inspection. I mean they're obviously interested

 

Yah totally.. it's not so much I'd be bothered they previously deployed I mean it's my truck I don't give to many fucks about that shit and I plan to have this truck for a long time yet. It's just more so I don't feel at fault so why should I have to pay my deductible and have rates go up because of a claim. Just evaluation the situation really.

 

Recently, all of our GMC sierra's company wide had to go in for a manditory reflash of the ECU because they have air bags prematurely deploying if certain criteria is met. Ours don't have side curtain bags, only driver front and passenger front...

All 2015-2016 were part of the recall.

Of course they wouldn't say what was causing it.

Same thing happened with a few models of the CTS and CTS-V from Cadillac a few years back. (Also a GM product. Not sure their airbag or airbag module supplier tho.)

 

Struggle as you may, I don't think any manufacturer is going to cover this type of incident as that is what they are designed to do. You may have caused the deployment as your butt dynomometer is not an accurate measurement instrument.

Have you contacted the insurance company?

 

You can exceed the limits of the Yaw Sensor / rollover programming without actually having a collision or rollover. That is the part you need to understand.

 

Yeah, I don't get the "air bags deployed, automatic total" thing. That's simply not the case. It's all about cost to repair/replace vs. vehicles value.

 

I dont get it either but it is the case. I work closely with wrecker companies that tow from crashes and they tell me the insurance almost always totals repairable vehicles if air bags are involved. They end up parting out the vehicles rather than towing them to a shop. I think they consider air bag deployment as an expensive fix.

 

So where is this disable button?

 

Mine is left if the steering wheel. I've never used it.

 

Replacing 1 airbag + components correctly can cost the insurance company $3-4,000, and a lot of that cost is because it has to be done and inspected by a certified airbag tech. Salvage shops can do it a lot cheaper cause they just swap parts.

 

It's the "RSCA OFF" button

 

should you disable it every time you do any kind of off-roading? even if mild?

 

This whole story sounds bs.

 

lol yah. I understand what you saying. I have contacted my insurance yes.. They directed me to contact Toyota though to pursue as they claim this a 'mechanical failure' and don't want to cover.