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Airbag nightmare

3K views 29 replies 5 participants last post by  CorollaCharlie 
#1 ·
So, as the title says, I experienced a complete nightmare today at the dealership getting my EO4 recall preformed.

So, I arrive at Lakeland Toyota and they take my car to the back and everything is hunky dory. About thirty minutes later, the advisor calls me up I thought "oh, well, that was fast". No. She claims "my airbag serial number was rubbed off". I think this sounds plausible and say fine, what's the problem? "Well, we have to call our factory rep in California while you leave the car here overnight". I have to get home, plus I live sixty miles away, plus I'm only twenty, so her trying to get me in a rental didn't work, and Toyota wasn't about to give me a free ride sixty miles home :D lol.

So she says "I'll have to disconnect your airbag until you leave it here overnight and we know it's safe". I'm like, "you imbecile, my parents BOUGHT IT FROM THIS DEALERSHIP NEW and the airbag has NEVER been touched in ten years". She says "well sir, it's been in an accident". At this point I'm ready to explode with anger because me or my mom or dad, or brother has put every single mile on this car up to 265, 970 miles and the airbags have never been deployed or touched. So she says "can you prove it hasn't been in an accident?" And so we pull up the carfax and I make her look like an idiot in front of her whole team.


Her next step is the absolutely most craziest, idiotic suggestion I've ever heard. Almost as dumb as me thinking a 2ZR camshaft will fit in a 1ZZ. After a while, she agrees to send me home with the airbag unplugged. She calls me back up later and says "you have an aftermarket airbag in your car". At this point, I wanted to just yell at her, but i refrained. First of all, I said there's no such thing as an "aftermarket airbag". Second of all "the airbag has never been touched". I even ASKED THE TECH WHO PREFORMED THE SERVICE RIGHT TO HIS FACE WHILE HECWAS STANDING BEHIND HER AND HE SHOOK HIS HEAD AND SAID NO!!!!!!!!!! I was like "You can't even buy them!!!!!! It's illegal!!!!!!!


So she called the rep and didn't hear anything back before I left but on my way home (still the airbag is disconnected) she calls and says they approved it. She said it'd take up to 90 days though, which is crazy.

Does anyone got any advice? I tried called Toyota but they just offered me words.


It seems as though service advisors are idiots. My car had that same airbag since it came off the lot, new. The customer service rep at the dealer is supposed to be calling.

What do you guys think?




I




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#2 ·
Just goes to show you that no experience required to be a service adviser at a dealership.

I would give the customer service rep a chance to fix the problem. If BS starts coming out of that person mouth, I would hang up the phone and call Toyota Motor Corporation to let them know what's going on at that dealership. Then, ask if your recall can be serviced somewhere else.
 
#5 ·
Just goes to show you that no experience required to be a service adviser at a dealership.



I would give the customer service rep a chance to fix the problem. If BS starts coming out of that person mouth, I would hang up the phone and call Toyota Motor Corporation to let them know what's going on at that dealership. Then, ask if your recall can be serviced somewhere else.

I don't know about her history, I just know that when I heard aftermarket airbag, she went full retard.

I will. I am at least hoping to be reimburse for gas or something as it is quite a drive.

I called corporate yesterday to try and get them to expedite the part but again, that didn't help. Does anyone have advice for that?


Like an idiot, I call my cousin afterwards who also works on cars and he said I should have gone out there to see the rubbed off serial number and aftermarket airbag, but stupid me didn't think about this because I was just so angry.


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#3 ·
Sounds like the cost of the airbag is coming out of the dealerships pocket but I'd think the replacement wouldn't cost them anything and she's trying to make excuses to not replace it. Should be all Toyota's cost.

With almost 300,000 miles on it she probably figured it had to have been in an accident.

Is there another dealership nearby that you could bring it to?
 
#4 ·
Yes. I took it to this one because it was bought there, plus in a bigger city, so I figured on getting lunch too.

No sir, not one accident. I will admit that it was my mom for about 222k miles and six years so that's a big reason.

I may take it somewhere else but I don't want this to happen again. The customer service rep at the dealer is supposed to call me back within 1-2 business days. I hope I can at least be reimbursed for gas.




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#6 ·
I'm hoping that she didn't rub the serial numbers off for spite.
 
#8 ·
I'd pull the glove box out and look under there for a quick look. Of course I was under there last week with my blower relay problem and didn't notice. Now if they had mentioned the recall a week earlier........
 
#15 ·
Which aibag module are you looking for? Aren't you looking at your passenger airbag (not an airbag module) which is above the glove box?

Yes. Looking at diagrams it looks like there is supposed to be something inside the curve. Take a look at this: http://youtu.be/gH0x7eDYECM

It won't be up much longer. Gives you a better grasp on my situation.


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#17 ·
Your airbag (not a module) is gone. That's why there's a hollow cylindical space inside. Looks like they removed it at the dealership.

Is that the part they were supposed to replace? Well, shit. I figured something was missing. I wonder if it was missing before I brought it there which means it was never put in...

What do you make of this whole ordeal man?


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#19 ·
I assume they removed it at the dealership yesterday when they started to perform the recall on your Corolla... I didn't bother taking mine in yet.

She specifically said "disconnect" not remove the whole freaking thing. Well, I was going to ask them if I could see it by my gosh it could be gone now. Oh well.

I mean, what do you make of my experience?


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#21 ·
She said it'd take up to ninety days to get the new one. Do you really think my numbers were rubbed off? Because we both know there's no magical "aftermarket airbag". So she lied twice to me at this point. That's more than slightly upsetting. Do you know if it's possible to expedite?


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#23 ·
I do have a question for you- was your corolla included in the recall? And do you have passengers in the front seat enough to even worry about it? I'm just curious, trying to see what people think about it. I guess if I never had passengers, I wouldn't care much, but I do, so it was a concern.


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#24 ·
Intentionally disabling safety items like airbags or tpms is in violation of federal law, under the make inoperative prohibition unless special permission is granted by the NHTSA and the owner signs papers acknowleding that they were informed of and accept the associated risks. Exceptions may be made for medical conditions, special builds, or other cirumstances. It's possible the dealer broke the law unintentionally by disabling or removing the airbag, though it's likely a technical violation of some statute requiring your or some regulatory permission. If they give you flack then heck, file a complaint with the NHTSA, your tax dollars at work man.
 
#26 · (Edited)
I did sign waivers...but she said they were only for the recall. I will call them tommrow and ask what I signed. My cousin told me about that law, but I was so angry I didn't want to talk to them again.

-thanks for the tip. Will be seeing what I can do from this point.

Do you think it was granted? They did tell me both at the dealer and at cooperate to not have passengers in the front.


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#25 ·
Yes.

No.

It's not worth my while to drive hundreds of miles for it. I can't trust my not-so-local Toyota dealer anyway. (James Toyota in Timmins)


I thought of that too. Your dealer could well be in trouble, especially if in an accident which deploys airbags.
 
#27 ·
Yes.



No.



It's not worth my while to drive hundreds of miles for it. I can't trust my not-so-local Toyota dealer anyway. (James Toyota in Timmins)

I can 100% understand that. I had a good experience when I got the seat re calibrated at anothe dealer so I figured they had gotten better since the days of "yeah your computers bad...and your car is under warranty...but we can't replace that for free."


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#28 ·
Did they put a tag/notice that the airbag is "disabled" for the passenger?
 
#30 ·
Talked to the customer service guy. He did rectify the situation to my satisfaction. I'm going to ask if he can get me a free oil change too, of he says no, it's only 21$ for all the supplies there, so no loss.

I guess I'll just keep you guys updated until the inflator gets here.


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