WG Airbag recall in Australia

[Tiddy]

Tiddy, I have more than a feeling it is the air bag module that is at fault. That would come froma single external supplier giving that it effects both US and export models. As an example my first car was a VK Calais with eh "Black" motor, which was the 202 straight 6 but with EFI. The Bosch EFI system in it was the same system in the Porsche 911 at the time.

From what I have read and can find about the fault, it appears that the resistance in the wiring loom for the airbags is the fault, not the airbags themselves. The problem is that the airbags get an erronous signal and deploy.

If it is then it comes down to a module or the loom itself.

I doubt that it's the loom as the size and weight of looms makes them impractical to ship O/S in a cost effective manner as a supply line consumable. A wiring loom as a spare part is actually ordered, wrapped/boxed, shipped and stored by a completely different part of the company. I could be wrong about that but from what I have encountered with Ford/Holden and Toyota they get as much as possible as practical from local suppliers as long as it's cost effective.

The module it self would be made by a supplier and would be a very indepth piece of kit. Even though they are probably interchangable throughout the model range/time frame, there would only one supplier due to the costs involved inmanufacture. They would be small and light, say 6"x4"x6" meaning you could load a 40' shipping container with at least 30,000 of the suckers and supply the Austrian plant for a month with a single container load.

One stillage used for wiring loom transport held only 50 looms meaning a cointainer would only hold about 4,000 looms. Not very cost effective in shipping thenO/S as a supply line part.

That could be the reason why it has been faulted on both US and Austrain made Grands.

Now getting a replacement part made, tested, installed and tested, full production, shipping to the distributors then O/S distributors and installed is the next step.

Very true Tim, & I know manufacturers change spec's without notice as they all say in their brochures.

What has me curious though, is they are saying its for cars sold between 2002-2004. So you would have to assume that it may affect cars made in say 2000 or 2001. Because my Grand has a build date of late 2000, an Australian comp plate of mid 2001 & it was first sold Dec 2001, so virtually a year between being built & sold.

This recall may cover cars actually build outside of that time frame. I would have thought a build date would have been more appropriate than a sold date.

tiddy