My aged 1993 Saturn SL2 needs to have the “horn and airbag assembly” replaced to pass safety inspection.
Is this one item, or two separate systems?
Roughly how expensive would something like this be, either new or from an auto salvage yard?
Some time back I got a replacement rear windshield from a cheap auto salvage yard in Maryland; it was a long drive, but the results have been entirely satisfactory and the price beat everyone else. I’m going to ask them, but it would help to have some sort of ballpark figure from a third party in order to judge their price.
Thanks in advance.
I suspect that it’s a sealed unit. (The clue is that it’s an ‘assembly’.) That is, the housing of the airbag is also the horn ‘button’.
I’ve heard that replacing airbags is expensive. I’ve also heard that salvaged airbags might be defective or might have been tampered with. Sorry, no cite.
Edit: I might have misheard the mechanic’s assistant on the phone, she could have said “horn and airbag assembly” or “horn…and the airbag assembly,” so you see why I ask.
I’m not actually sure I want a working airbag. I’m short and sit close to the steering wheel/airbag; it’s my understanding that airbag deployment is very strong and can injure or kill someone short and close.
I always wear my lap and shoulder belts, drive carefully, and the 1993 Saturn (with anti-lock brakes) was top-rated by Consumer Reports for stopping quickly in dry, wet, and mixed conditions.
I had heard that airbags could have been set for slower deployment and worked just as well with seatbelts, but the government mandated the faster deployment speed to save unbelted idiots, thereby endangering people like me. But that may be rumor.
At any rate, I need it to pass inspection; I guess whether it works or not I’ll have to take my chances. But thanks for the warning, I love talking about safety issues.
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I miss my SL2. I didn’t pour oil into it fast enough and it seized up.
I have no insight on H&AA but I had a constant problem passing Illinois emissions test every two years (we don’t have “safety inspections” for autos here.) No matter what I replaced or cleaned up, the car could not pass the test. The guys at the testing place said all Saturns, at least the older ones, had the same problem. Eventually you show them you spent hundreds of dollars on mechanics and they pass you.
A real gem of a car except for that one problem, and the burning oil in the final months.
FWIW I have a Toyota where the horn doesn’t work very well and they told me it needed a new steering pad assembly which included the airbag mechanism, and the total cost was quoted at around $1,100. Not a Saturn, but illustrates that this is feasible.