paintless dent repair...and airbags

[salty87]

car got hit by hail. got the damage fixed at one of the places on the side of the road. the shop the insurance co was using was backlogged for 3 months.

get the car back and the dents are all gone but so are the airbags now. there's a light on the dash saying they aren't activated. they were fine when we dropped it off.

so i call the hail guy and ask him if it was possible that a sensor got messed up. he says they weren't near the sensors and couldn't have done anything to cause it. pretty much tells me tough crap.

any suggestions on my recourse? i can't imagine the dealer has a cheap fix for this and i'm not too eager to take my car back to this guy.

 

[lowkee]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

I would check the fuse box first. Most airbags are simply disabled by removing a fuse. The dent repair people likely do this 1st thing as airbags are not cheap.

--EDITED OUT INSURANCE CO STUFF (read the OP wrong)--

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

Hey lowkee, nice try trying to blame this guy's insurance company. Read his post a little closer, he took the car where he wanted to and got screwed. Maybe if people actually listened to their insurance carrier/agent/claims person, they'd be better off? Nah, all insurance people are out to screw you.

Salty, there are no airbags in the hood, trunk lid or roof of any cars currently made. Now if you have side curtain airbags, or side air bags mounted in the doors/pillars, it's possible they disconnected them when removing trim pieces, dropping the headliner, or working inside the doors.
A very quick scan at the dealership will tell them why the warnign light is on. Only when you know what the problem is, can you fix it, and start blaming someone. You have some due diligence ahead of you. Good luck.

 

[RollingWanderer]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

Tilliam - I don't think lowkee was blaming the ins company, though I'll concede that he maybe doesn't have the highest view of them and the shops they recommend. I do think his suggestion to check the fuse was very valid. You're right that cars don't have airbags in the hood, but they do have the sensors that deploy the airbags in the front end. I could easily see someone who doesn't understand exactly how the sensors work, but knows that they are there being afraid of setting off an airbag...and as I recall from other threads, you work for an ins company, so I'm sure you know just how freakin' expensive they are.

Lowkee - I will say from personal experience that sometimes the shop the ins company recommends does do excellent work.

Now back to the original point of the thread...

Salty - Lowkee was right on to suggest checking the fuse. If the fuse is fine (make sure it's not blown, not just that it's there), then I'd take Tilliam's suggestion, take the car by the dealer and have them hook it up to the scanner. It'll tell them why the light is on, and they'll probably scan it for free. If you don't want to take it to the dealer, you may be able to rent a code scanner from Auto Zone (or other auto parts store) depending on your vehicle.

-RW

 

[lowkee]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

Nah, all insurance people are out to screw you.

The people don't make the rules, the company does, and the company is out for the highest profit (just like any company). Coming from the financial industry, I have seen horrible things happen to people by the company. I just happened to be the person working for it at the time. Don't get offended if someone doesn't like a company you work for just because you work for it. Unless you made the horrid policy screwing them, they aren't referring to you. Of course, if you work for a company which gives bonuses on low payout to accident ratios, I am talking about you

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

No sensors for airbags are located in the hood, roof, or trunklid either.

Lowkey, just cause you work for a bad company and cheat people doesn't mean that all insurance companies do. Sure companies want profit, that's what Capitalism is all about. But the fact remains in this case, they paid a claim, recommended a shop and the owner/policyholder took it ot another shop of his choice. Now he has problems. I'm just saying that "perhaps" the insurance company had his best interest in mind when they recommened the other shop. As opposed to a "side of the road" guy.
I earned very nice bonuses based on the profitability of the company as a whole, btw. After investment income was figured. Oh, but for 4 years, we got no bonus at all due to low investment income. So it didn't matter how much I paid out, it was more about investment income.
We paid claims based on the principle, "Pay what we owe, to who(m) we owe it, when we owe it." It worked pretty good.

salty, one other thing to consider is that since your insurance carrier did pay this claim, you might want to advise them what is wrong, so that if the damage is related, they know now, and not later. A good claim rep might be able to help you out.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

Depending on the make, model, year...... the air bag thing may be a coincidence but I would get a scanner to check the codes.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

I had an airbag light issue in my Buick once. Turned out to be a sensor in the seat and was a cheap and easy fix.

 

[salty87]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

took it the shop to get the codes read. side curtain bag isn't connected or isn't connected properly. this de-activated all the bags AND the seat belt tensioners. that was real sweet of them, they would have had some serious liability had my wife gotten into an accident with no airbags or seatbelt.

i'm not letting those dent people touch the car again. the shop we normally use says they can handle it.

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

Well, now that you have diagnosed the problem and fixed it you can determine if the PDR guy caused it. If there were roof dents, chances are they dropped the headliner to repair the roof dents. In doing so, they unplugged the curtain airbag, and forgot to plug it back in. It can happen to anyone (and I have seen it at a dealership before), but they should have realized it when they started the car and the light stayed on. They probably did know they had done it, but for some reason (time and complexity) they didn't want to plug it back in. What did the shop have to charge you to hook it back up?

 

[salty87]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

What did the shop have to charge you to hook it back up?

will find out in a few hours.

the dent people dropped the headliner and i understand that things get overlooked. it was just his 'go screw yerself' attitude telling me that there was no way they could have done anything to the airbags that pissed me off.

the guy has since made some excuses about the "guy he had working on it must have missed something"....whatever. not like i'd let those clowns work on it again anyway.

lesson learned

 

[TilliamWe]

Re: paintless dent repair...and airbags

I know exactly what you mean salty. A quick, "I am sorry for the light, but I don't think we did anything wrong" sounds better than, "We didn't touch that stuff". Followed by a "lets hook it up at the dealer, and if it's a sensor in the area we were in, we'll check it out". That leaves him with wiggle room to fix it himself, let someone else do it, or tell you to pound sand if it's totally unrelated. So another customer service failure. Bummer