2010 Airbag Study/Replacement?

So, sometimes in my life as a techie troubleshooter I get strange calls. But this was a new one: A local dealership that I've occasionally used for maintenance/repairs (they're not the batch I bought the car from) rang me up.
The nice lady confirmed that they knew who I was, that I owned a 2010 Gen 3 Prius, and, for the trade of a $100 gift certificate, they'd like to have my car for a day. To replace the air bags.
I asked, "Is this some kind of recall?"
She replied, "Absolutely not. Sometimes the engineers at Toyota want to look at older cars and their parts to see how they're doing over time."
A freebie loaner car was thrown into the pot, so I accepted. I asked when. She said, "Anytime." I said, "How about tomorrow?" She had me wait for a bit while she checked, and then stated that the parts wouldn't come in that fast. I suggested Friday.. So, Friday, 7:30 a.m., I'm going to drop off the car and snag the loaner.

I've run a few checks on the web. There's some site that lists the various complaints the NHTSA gets on cars, and the Gen 3 2010's do seem to have a dozen or so complaints where it's been complained that the airbags didn't deploy when they should have, complete with trips to the hospital and all. For a car in major production that doesn't seem wildly excessive, but what do I know. There don't seem to be any voluntary or mandatory recalls on the bags.

If this is a way to suck me into a dealership to admire Gen 4 Priuses, it sure seems like an expensive way to do it.

So, has this happened to anybody else or is this something unique?

KBeck

 

Good point. Just finished navigating to Toyota's recall check page, stuck in my VIN and got this:
There are no open Safety Recalls or Service Campaigns for this vehicle.
So, nothing obvious from Toyota.
Kbeck

 

Well, it's Sansome Toyota. A fairly large, very official looking, true-blue Toyota dealer on US 1 north of here. Problems with a hole-in-the-wall, no-name repair shop, sure, but that's not these guys. If they do something stupid, there's not a lawyer in New Jersey who doesn't know how to find the place, it's kind of obvious.

And, from another perspective, the principals who run the place have an obvious reminder of the long arm of the law in view all day: There's a State Prison, barbed wire, watchtowers, and mongo parking garage literally next door.

I doubt they'd do anything stupid.

Kbeck

 

The story continues.

This afternoon got a voice mail from the nice lady who called me yesterday. She was in a bit of a frenzy; apparently it dawned on somebody that a large number of parts were being ordered and there wasn't going to be enough to go around. She said she was calling all 40 (!) Prius owners that she had contacted the previous day and telling them not to come in when originally scheduled.

She said the parts would all be in on June 3rd or so and she would call me back when they showed.

Sounds like a summer hire . She claimed, slightly flustered, that I would be in the first ten so called. Made sure that the appointment for tomorrow was canceled, said goodbye and hung up.

We'll see.

Kbeck.

 

Finishing up the thread.

On Thursday, 6/2, got a call from the dealership: The airbag parts had come in, and would I like to schedule the time and place? Said yes, how about tomorrow, and the nice lady agreed. She stated that she literally had the parts in hand. (Which made me kind of curious: a couple of weeks ago she had said that she had had to cancel 40-odd appointments due to lack of parts. 40 cars worth of airbags sound like more than one could have in "a hand"; more likely, they were stacked up in her office, I guess.)

Dropped the car off at 8:00 a.m. The service agent knew about the study. While he was writing up the ticket I mentioned that I knew about the various Takata recalls. The man said he thought that the Priuses didn't use Takatas. His thought: Toyota wanted the old airbags for testing to see how they had worn over time. We agreed that was cool, but I got the impression that he was guessing away at the reasons as fast as I was.

Ended up with a Rav4 with 30K miles as the loaner. Sprightly little SUV, but it sure uses gas faster than the Prius. Had to fill it on the way back, since the loaner car lady said they were going to charge me $7/gallon if I didn't return it full. Two gallons for 40 odd miles, sheesh. Would have been nice if they had a 2016 Prius for a loaner, but what Priuses they have for loaners are 2012, and they were all out.

Got called at 4:30 p.m. and informed the work was done. Got back a little late (partly due to getting gas), and so didn't get a chance to talk with the service advisor. I got a fast look at some of the forms, one of which had the cost of labor and materials; didn't get a good look, but at least one set of those was $2400 for labor and (I think) $750 for parts, but I may have those reversed.

Another fellow drove up with the car. Interestingly, none of the plastic piece parts that overlay the airbags looked any different than they had before the work, but I guess that's understandable: The plastic comes off and they work on the stuff below. I was told that all the airbags were replaced - driver's side, passenger's side, and the two curtain bags.

Once upon a time I had a Honda Civic whose service manual I had bought. The portions of that manual that dealt with the airbags was a sight to behold - do this, don't do that, with DANGER OF DEATH in large letters all over the place. I got the distinct impression that the mechanics who worked airbags had either a death wish, bomb-proof suits, or missing body parts and this was not a job for ye Back Yard Mechanic. So swapping airbags.. Doesn't sound like something that the corporate people would want their mechanics doing for fear that some doofus or other is going to end up flattened. So, still wonder what's going on.

To summarize:

1. Yep, they replaced the airbags.
2. Didn't cost me anything save gas for the loaner.
   
3. A dealer service guy thinks that Toyota's looking at wear on the airbags. I think he's guessing.
   
4. At this one dealer there appears to have been at least 40 2010 model year Priuses to which this is being done.
5. Took them most of the day on one car. Or maybe they had a little assembly line going and mine was towards the rear.
   
6. Somebody's paying the dealer some fairly serious bucks to do the work.
7. Have to call up the dealer on Monday and ask the nice lady about where the $100 gift card they were going to give me got to. (I did mention I was late, right?)

And there you are.

KBeck.

 

Although.. Speaking as a person who pounds hammers on field returns and has been involved from time to time with factory and engineering test: There's a big difference between, on the one hand, multiple tests of various kinds during design, coding, and various kinds of engineering stress and compliance testing over several months, and, on the other hand, five years in the field being used continuously. The field use, especially across the large population of an installed base, are much more trying than anything that can be done in the lab because of, well, statistics and large numbers.

My personal mantra: Every piece of ($RANDOM_HARDWARE UNION $RANDOM_SOFTWARE) is like a lightbulb: It burns out somewhere, eventually.

If you want to get picky, the Prius Beta Testers association for Gen III were those who bought and used those cars during the first year it was out there, starting in mid-2009. This is why Consumer's Union never recommends new cars during their first model year.

If this is really Toyota doing this, it means that to somebody back in Japan, they realize that they Don't Know All The Answers, and Would Like To Know Some of Them. With the intention of building better stuff the next time. Call it reliability engineering. With some bucks to back it up. Actually, kind of impressive, now that I think of it: Not every pointed-haired boss would go for this. (I'm looking at you, Detroit!)

KBeck

 

And, here we are back again. Today, June 29th, Toyota has announced a recall of 2010, 2011, and various 2012 Priuses for potentially broken welds on the side curtain airbags.

Ahem. I had asked, "Is this a recall or something?" Answer: "No, it's not! Toyota just does studies from time to time."

So, 40-odd cars at this dealer as part of the "study".

Now that the recall is known, one of my bloody-minded co-workers thinks that it's more likely to have been a dry run before the main announcement went out the door. I'm still leaving open the possibility that the replaced airbags confirmed what Toyota already suspected, although the announcement on 6/28 is pretty close on the heels of the air bag replacement that ended on 6/1/2016 or thereabouts.

Fun.

KBeck

 

Yah, went and logged onto my account at Toyota.com, where they got my VIN, maintenance history, and everything.

The site says my car is subject to the recall; it also says something odd about, "fixes not ready yet" or something. Which I read as meaning that maybe the replacement airbags were on back order. On the other hand, this is the early days for all this and left and right hands may not know what they're doing. Funny if they put replacement air bags in that might also have future broken welds.