I don’t know how to tag a member but Baglady, can you give any tips on sewing up the seat after replacing seat airbag?
I believe you did yours. What thread did you use?
I believe you did yours. What thread did you use?
Technical Sewing up seat after airbag blown
- Thread starter typecastboy
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Technical Sewing up seat after airbag blown
Baglady1990 Please can you advise?!
typecastboy I actually gently unpicked the thread from an old seat down the same seam as where the airbag was located!
Seeing as the old seat was going to the tip I took out most of the thread
I had to remove the leather seat cover (upper) then hand stitch with a large leather needle working with a leather poke and working the needle through the original holes!
Took a couple of days to do .. my finger ends were sore as **** but it turned out really well!
As I worked from the underside of the leather you couldn’t see anything when it went back!
I could hell as find appropriate thread from anywhere so had to use what I could find!
:bang:
Seat seams around airbag components are safety critical items. In the factory, these are sewn on specialist machines using custom threads to ensure they will deploy correctly. These machines can cost upwards of $100,000 each and can document and barcode each individual cover so that there is a traceable history to the seat.
It's not recommended that seat covers involving airbags are repaired; they should be replaced with new OEM covers. These can be very expensive; it's one reason why cars are often written off when airbags have been deployed.
Read this article to get a better understanding of what's involved, and why this job isn't something you can safely do at home.
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Well it was ok for me when I was driving it.
My pop has been sold on now but I returned it to its pop originality prior to letting it go!
The Gucci seats I had I cut up and I’m going to utilise the removed leather & stripes
My pop has been sold on now but I returned it to its pop originality prior to letting it go!
The Gucci seats I had I cut up and I’m going to utilise the removed leather & stripes
Suppose you'd been involved in a side impact accident, the seat airbag had failed to deploy correctly and your passenger had lost their life?
Would you still be saying it was OK??
Manufacturers have invested many millions in improving car safety systems; one consequence of this is that it's often more costly to repair them if those safety systems have been compromised. This makes it tempting for some folks to take shortcuts. But how can you balance the value of a life against the small change saved by repairing salvaged parts on the cheap?
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You could say the same about the million's of Takata airbags that were fitted to cars that have the possibility of firing metal shard's into the passengers when they are deployed of which there like to be many still fitted to cars
So that somehow makes it OK to knowingly compromise a car's critical safety systems by conducting unapproved repairs?
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Out of interest..
My 1999 car was my 1st with more than a steering wheel airbag.. it had labels stating the airbags were certified for 10 years.. at the time I was glad I sold it after 5
But none of these devices are MOT items.. or probably even dealer service items..
Reminds me of our old 156..
At some point.. the the airbag warning light had been masked off
My 1999 car was my 1st with more than a steering wheel airbag.. it had labels stating the airbags were certified for 10 years.. at the time I was glad I sold it after 5
But none of these devices are MOT items.. or probably even dealer service items..
Reminds me of our old 156..
At some point.. the the airbag warning light had been masked off
Well! I got my arse kicked! So thanks for that I still can’t find my dummy I spat it out earlier!
As it happens those seats were sent to the tip and new ones installed before I let the pop go!
As it happens those seats were sent to the tip and new ones installed before I let the pop go!
As always I agree 110%
My day job (I work for a car manufacturer) is trying to ensure cars do what they’re meant to do. Most of the time it’s something silly like an icon being wrong or your phone dropping it’s Bluetooth connection to the head unit. Sometimes it’s an occupancy detection system not working or an airbag warning which means that the airbag won’t deploy and stop our customer’s skull from hitting the steering wheel or the b pillar and braining themselves.
We spend millions to make sure our cars do their best to keep their occupants safe. Seeing people trying to poorly repair cars to save a few quid is just soul destroying and deeply worrying. What price do you people put on your life and the lives of others?
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Not sure that everyone appreciates these efforts. Many people couldn't care less about all these safety features they have to buy (and pay for) because some overzealous regulator forced them into law.
50% of my cars don't have a single airbag and I'm perfectly fine with that. Changing a steering wheel is a piece of cake and you even get nice looking alloy spoke ans wood rim steering wheels for those cars.
In Germany, handling an airbag as a private person is legally forbidden. You need to have an explosives handling certificate for that. And nobody will offer courses for non commercial participants to get that certificate. Talk about effective monopolisation and a "right to repair"...
50% of my cars don't have a single airbag and I'm perfectly fine with that. Changing a steering wheel is a piece of cake and you even get nice looking alloy spoke ans wood rim steering wheels for those cars.
In Germany, handling an airbag as a private person is legally forbidden. You need to have an explosives handling certificate for that. And nobody will offer courses for non commercial participants to get that certificate. Talk about effective monopolisation and a "right to repair"...
Then later, when the car is a few years old, and of little interest to the manufacturer any more, replacement seat covers will not be available. It is unlikely that owners will be willing, or can afford, to scrap the car because a seat cover is damaged. Then if a professional repairer cannot be found at an affordable price, they'll do it themselves. To keep trim items available for a long time is very expensive, as the economy of numbers is lost, so a catch22. Made worse by trim designs changing with each model facelift.
The answer is release details of thread type and tension, so that independent trimmers can make seats for older vehicles. If vehicle lifespan is shortened by such issues, depreciation will be severe, affecting new sales. A difficult juggling act for manufacturers.
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...but they have to, because the car will fail its next MOT (at least in Germany), which may not be economically viable. Putting in a seat without an airbag is not an option either. So here we have a write off or forced obsolescence after a minor crash that releases the airbag - not a very sustainable approach imho.
So we shouldn’t have standards for repairs?
Do you not like the idea of buying a used car and knowing that it will perform as the manufacturer designed it to?
There are a number of detail design details and human factors at play here. The amount a human body will swing about inside a car will depend on seat design somewhat, and dynamics of impact. Say the head moves 3 inches in a side impact with similar seat design in most cars. In the big heavy German saloon cars I have sat in my head would be an inch into the side panel. In a panda it won't hit anything. Guess which one most needs side impact bags, and which one has them because it is a defacto standard. While the bag itself is clearly an important instrument not to be tampered with, it is a nonsense that they can't be refitted or have trim around them easily replaced and that is a symptom of bad industrial design... Unfortunately such cosmetic and optional driven rubbish is everywhere in our consumer society.
