Diesel_Mikey
Veteran Member
Forgive me if I should have put this in the A4-platform category, but since the car in question (my mom's 2003 Golf) is a gasser and it's not engine-related anyway, I figured it belonged more here.
At any rate, I just got home from an interesting way to observe Mothers' Day: my mom was driving home after having dinner at my house when the driver's side curtain and torso airbags on her Golf deployed for no apparent reason. The seatbelt pre-tensioner on the driver's seat also deployed. I told her to just have it towed for now, figuring whatever randomly set off the side airbags for no reason could just as easily up and decide to set off the front one (that couldn't be much fun at 70 mph
) then went to pick her up. I'm no insurance adjustor, but having known this car since the day she bought it, and having looked it over just now, it's pretty clear it didn't hit anything. Or get hit by anything. At all. Ever.
Has anyone else heard of something like this happening, specifically on an A4 Golf/Jetta? I figure it has to be a sensor fault or a short of some kind that caused it, but this is a car that has had no history of electrical gremlins of any sort over the past 115,000 miles, so it would have picked a hell of a way to start.
This much is certain: having a side curtain airbag go off while you're driving has to be like having someone fire a gun over your shoulder...not great for concentration. It takes a good deal of presence of mind not to stuff the car in a situation like that, especially since she reported that the engine cut out when it happened (I guess the ECM cuts ignition power when a crash, or "crash," has been detected? I've never been in a crash of any kind in a car with airbags, as it happens, so I don't really know what goes on...) In short, while playing the roadside assistance game was a bit more good-son-ery than I had had planned for Mothers' Day, I'm just happy to have spent the past few hours doing that rather than going to the hospital.
The magic of Google returned one or two forum posts about this sort of thing on other sites, but I'm wondering if anyone here has heard of this happening, because (obviously) it has the potential to be pretty dangerous.
At any rate, I just got home from an interesting way to observe Mothers' Day: my mom was driving home after having dinner at my house when the driver's side curtain and torso airbags on her Golf deployed for no apparent reason. The seatbelt pre-tensioner on the driver's seat also deployed. I told her to just have it towed for now, figuring whatever randomly set off the side airbags for no reason could just as easily up and decide to set off the front one (that couldn't be much fun at 70 mph
) then went to pick her up. I'm no insurance adjustor, but having known this car since the day she bought it, and having looked it over just now, it's pretty clear it didn't hit anything. Or get hit by anything. At all. Ever.Has anyone else heard of something like this happening, specifically on an A4 Golf/Jetta? I figure it has to be a sensor fault or a short of some kind that caused it, but this is a car that has had no history of electrical gremlins of any sort over the past 115,000 miles, so it would have picked a hell of a way to start.
This much is certain: having a side curtain airbag go off while you're driving has to be like having someone fire a gun over your shoulder...not great for concentration. It takes a good deal of presence of mind not to stuff the car in a situation like that, especially since she reported that the engine cut out when it happened (I guess the ECM cuts ignition power when a crash, or "crash," has been detected? I've never been in a crash of any kind in a car with airbags, as it happens, so I don't really know what goes on...) In short, while playing the roadside assistance game was a bit more good-son-ery than I had had planned for Mothers' Day, I'm just happy to have spent the past few hours doing that rather than going to the hospital.
The magic of Google returned one or two forum posts about this sort of thing on other sites, but I'm wondering if anyone here has heard of this happening, because (obviously) it has the potential to be pretty dangerous.
