1999 S70T5 How to tell if air bags have been serviced.

[ThinAir]

Hello all,

How does one tell if their airbags have been serviced? The owners manual says to do it at 10 years and I've looked at the sticker and it has a hole corresponding to the month it was manufactured ten years later but no other markings that I can see. Just curious.

J

[rspi]

That sticker is it. If the sticker is marked it has been done. So at that time they were believed to be good.

Just seen a '93 in the jy with both air bags deployed so they may be fine. Wait, both airbags were deployed from the car hitting a curb, hmmm, that may not be good.

[abscate]

Volvo actually relaxed the 10 year replacement rule in a service bulletin on/about 2008, so I would no t sweat this too much.

Of course, I grew up in the no-seat belt era, so my sense of risk aversion is probably also Darwin-friendly.

[rmmagow]

Probably a b***h to test too

[ThinAir]

Thanks for the replies guys. In addition to knowing that my airbags have been serviced, I figured if they had been done the original owners probably took good care of my car if they forked out to have that done. I'm the 2.5th owner. The middle guy bought it, drove it for six months and then sold it due to being way in debt.

[jimmy57]

The initial thought was the inflator chemical had limited "shelf" life. After the cars aged and the original components set aside in the 80's were tested they found the inflator chemicals lost little of their strength. The "service" then became nothing more than turn on ignition, check that warning light is lit, wait ten seconds (shorter if engine is started) and then see that the light goes off. That is all that is done per mfr. procedure.

You service the airbag system every time you see the warning light is on and goes off.

[abscate]

Old thread, but by now Im guessing there is some decent data on 20+ year old cars and if airbags are failing to deploy.

Of course, if you have Takata AirBags, it is probably safer if they don't. Nothing like having a Claymore in front of you on the steering wheel.

[Rattnalle]

I work next to a large Volvo dealer. They have a large storage area for cars that have been brought there after accidents for insurance evaluation. A lot of smashed up Volvos moving through and airbags seem to still deploy in old cars from that sample.

[jimmy57]

Airbag service procedure was "a thing" because the manufacturers thought that the airbag chemicals would lose their effectiveness to explode with time. They thought at one time that you would need to replace the airbag. The chemicals in early bags were developed to power rockets and needed no external air for combustion which produces huge volume of gas to inflate bag and did it at a burn rate that suited inflating and keeping airbag inflated for the period of a collision. Rockets had expiration dates due to known loss of effectiveness. The early airbags had open vents and the gas generator was not sealed well. After time passed they then knew that the early ones lost a little effectiveness but were also way more aggressive than they had really needed to be. There were no message centers, just warning lights and they knew that needed a check too. Newer cars use less gas generator and are sealed well so the checks disappeared and there is only text in owner's guide but if you have a problem you would have a text message in display to back up warning light so even a scheduled warning light check is not called for. Takata was not a supplier for Volvo EVER so they have no exposure to the risk of Takata's chemical package container failures.

If your warning lights and message center work then you are OK. The warning light system is a "dead man's switch" style. If the signal to turn off the warning light is not sent then it will be defaulted on. On cars with message center you will get SRS service needed message if the light bulb control circuit, including bulb, has an issue.

[abscate]

Thanks Jimmy

It was a hot debate here about the SRS/fault condition text PRESENCE automatically inferred that the air bags were disabled. Without asking for insider information, any inisghts?