I have 2013 Scion xB and received an official letter from Toyota notifying me about the safety recall for my model. I made an appointment with a local Toyota dealership yesterday for the work.
Has anyone had this done on their car, notably on a Scion xB? Dealership said only trained technicians can do this sort of work and that it’ll take about 2 hours to do. Apparently they have to remove the dash. Yikes! I’m sure they’re trained professionals, but I’m nervous about them not putting the dash back on perfectly. What was your experience?
modern cars are designed so that parts and sub-assemblies incorporate all sorts of holding features and locator tabs and pins. it’s honestly pretty difficult to put them together incorrectly anymore. and “taking out the dashboard” is time consuming but isn’t as daunting a task as it sounds like. I did the heater core in my Neon a number of years ago which is just as involved. other than getting stuff out of the way like the center console, it was little more than unscrew about a dozen bolts, tilt the entire dash back onto the seats, and pull the HVAC box out.
plus, the factory service manuals are pulled from the same procedures used by the assembly plant to build the car in the first place.
You have a choice: suffer some inconvenience for a few days or have a grenade go off in your face because some idiot texting his boo about tonight’s festivities hits you hard enough to set off the airbags.
If you want to roll the dice, it’s your call, but don’t pretend that it’s not important and you’re not making a potentially fatal error.
Had this done on my 07 Subaru last year. It took two appointments, one for the driver’s side and one for the passenger as stock was low. It shouldn’t take three days. The only way I knew anything had been done was the car interior was clean and the radio had to be reprogrammed.
I had it done on my 2012 Ford Mustang just last week. It was in and out in a day, and they were doing other work on it, as well. I notice no sign of anything looking different / off on the dashboard, either.
The three days thing is weird. When I had my airbags replaced, they also took care of another recall issue that required removing the engine to fix. That plus the airbags took less than a day.
keep in mind the repair time depends on whether the airbag inflator needing replacement is the driver side or passenger side (or both.) the driver side one should be able to be done w/o even removing the steering wheel. the passenger side one can be a crapshoot; depending on how it’s designed (and packaged in the IP) it could be as simple as removing the glove compartment, or as involved as removing the entire dash.
As others have said, ask for a loaner if they don’t bring it up. The manufacturers are getting sued over the delays and the potential safety of driving a car with metal shards coming out of the airbags: Nissan owners to get up to $500, rental cars in Takata air bag deal
Nissan was taken to court and has to give you a loaner. After more than a year of delay “waiting for parts” my friend called and they just automatically signed her up for a loaner without her even having to ask. The day she called they told her to park her car and not drive it. She had the loaner car at no charge for 4 or 5 months.
As for OPs concerns, just be safe you could photograph your car before getting the airbags replaced, this would give you some ammunition if you have to dispute any of the work with the service manager. But most likely it will be no problem at all. You can’t tell the difference in the cars I’ve seen that had the airbags replaced.
When I called my Subaru dealer about this they offered me a loaner new Outback for 7 days (estimated time to get the part and replace it) for my 13 yr old Outback, even offered to tow it to them and drop off the new car for me to use during this repair.
As for your question, when I got it back there was no indication of anything different, no rattle no lose parts. As for what they did I assume that since they ponied up on a new outback with milage still in the 100’s for me to enjoy for taht week, I assume they did things right.
They are not replacing the air bag. They are replacing the inflator. It is the size of a tuna fish can. It inflates the airbag. It has a primer which ignites a solid jet fuel (sometimes).
In Takata’s inflator, the tuna can (usually aluminum) becomes a shrapnel that can be lethal.
Update: thanks to all you scoldy bastards, I finally called the dealer to arrange. They booked me in the same week, confirmed it would take 3-5 days, and promised me a loaner.
When I checked in, they said it’d be done by the end of the day, and that there were no loaners available, but the shuttle would drop me off within 10 miles. I had them take me home.
I first read that as a comma between the two words, not a period. :eek:
When I called the Mazda dealer, they said they’d need a couple of days to get the parts in but I made an appointment right then for the following week. They offered up a loaner. Was done in less than one day.
They pulled it around a brand new 6 sedan & left it running, I hopped in & drove off. Went to start it later & couldn’t. Tried holding the fob over the button as I’ve heard you can to that if the fob battery dies, even though it shouldn’t be dead on a car w/ < 400 miles; still no luck. I didn’t know you need to put your foot on the brake before pressing <Start> as mine only needs the foot on brake to put it in gear but not to put the key in & turn the ignition. :smack:
