Curtain Airbags Removed?

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86Cutlass
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Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:08 pm

Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by 86Cutlass »

Hello,

I recently removed the headliner from my 2012 Caprice to replace the fabric as the old fabric was falling down and leaving foam crumbs around the car. When the headliner was out, I noticed that there were no curtain airbags in the car. I should mention that this car was in an accident early in its life, and was rebuilt by the insurance company before I bought the car. The photos I found of the damage from the accident showed that both front curtain airbags were deployed, so the car definitely had them at one point.

The wires for the airbags are still there, but it looks like they have been taped together. The car does have the airbag light on, but the codes are for the driver and passenger seat belt pretensioners. So the missing curtain airbags are not causing a code for whatever reason.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? Has someone "deleted" the airbags and maybe added a resistor to fool the computer? I cannot get photos right now, but I will try to attach a couple of the wires later today in a response post. If anyone has any insight, it would be much appreciated.
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elc32955
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by elc32955 »

Guess it depends who made the repair and if an insurance claim was filed & paid for. Agency cars are a lot of times repaired "in-house" in a variety of fashions, the most extreme I've ever seen is two cars being cut in half, welded together, and one good car made of two. That was done in-house by a County Sheriff's Office here in Florida in the mid-1970's.

Nowadays it would be foolish in the extreme for an agency to jury-rig and not replace a safety system that had been activated. I can just SEE the civil suit that could result if the car was hit again and an officer injured or killed. If an insurance company is going to pay a claim, most certainly they would pay to have an airbag system restored & made operational. I seem to recall there are federal laws against tampering an airbag system to boot.

Additionally, if a body shop accepted insurance money to complete a repair and it was not performed, there's this little thing called "Insurance Fraud". That's usually equivalent to "Go to Jail, go Directly to Jail. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200".

VERY sketchy at best. After seeing that, I'd question what other shortcuts were taken on the car repair from that crash.

Good luck!
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
s/c'd cav
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by s/c'd cav »

are you missing the front , rear or both ?

the rears were optional
86Cutlass
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by 86Cutlass »

I am missing both front curtain bags, I do not see any wiring for where there could have been rear curtain bags, so this car must have come without them.

The pictures did not show as much as I would like them to, the headliner got more in the way then I expected. This first picture is of the passenger 'A' pillar, where you can see what I assume are the wires for the airbag, and a clip to hold the end of the bag.

The second picture is behind the headliner and directly above the passenger door, clearly with no airbag present.

The last picture shows the end of the wires from the 'A' pillar. It is hard to tell from the picture, but they appear to be electrical taped at the end.

I would like this car to be safe for my daily driver, so I would eventually like to have the bags reinstalled. Is this something I should visit a Chevy dealership to do? I tend to do most of my own mechanical work, but working with the cars safety systems, especially the airbags, has always concerned me.
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s/c'd cav
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by s/c'd cav »

out of the 6 possible part #s for the 12's , 2 are discontinued , the other 4 are stocked in the pontiac mi warehouse

so yes dealer might be your best bet , otherwise you are looking at used parts and either doing it yourself , or having a shop do it

alot will have to do with the plug and might be a can of worms , GM usually doesnt have service connector ends for the airbag system
smwalker
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by smwalker »

So you might have 2 problems. If your code is for the seat belt pre tensioners then those might have been deployed and since those are a one shot use item those will need to be replaced. You can tell if they are deployed if the accordion style boot around them is collapsed.

Then if you do not have a code for the side curtains and they are not there chances are they have installed a resistor to fool the SRS module into think in they are there. Thats why you might see the connector end taped up to protect the resistor. Hopefully they did not cut off the AIR bag connector to install the resistor but many times they do.
Steve Walker
Azusa, CA
'11 PPV 9C3 Huron White
smwalker
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by smwalker »

And you connector for them is actually up by the B pillar. Even further back if it is a front and rear side curtain.
#1 in this pic shows the location of the connector for a front only side curtain air bag.
https://www.chiltonlibrary.com/content/ ... 544543.pdf
Steve Walker
Azusa, CA
'11 PPV 9C3 Huron White
86Cutlass
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by 86Cutlass »

smwalker, thank you for that information on the location of the curtain bag modules. I had a check last night as I was installing a new driverside seatbelt (a cause of one of the pretensioner codes), and there are no connectors, modules, etc for the curtain airbags whatsoever.

It seems I am going to have to dig a little deeper into where the airbag wiring starts / stops and what it is going to take to have curtain airbags installed.

Does anyone happen to know if G8 curtain bags are the same as the Caprice bags? I seem to be able to find those easier and cheaper than the caprice bags.

Thank you again for all of your help so far, I am glad I reached out to this community.
s/c'd cav
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by s/c'd cav »

caprice are different
86Cutlass
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Re: Curtain Airbags Removed?

Post by 86Cutlass »

Nuts, I will have to look around and see if anyone is parting out a caprice with intact curtain bags then. I know there is a Facebook group, time to go ask around.
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