Rep Power: 235

Learn from me and think twice before buying salvage. Hell, I would suggest not even doing it.

2001 EX coupe. Bought it salvage in January 2007 for $2000. Thought it was a pretty good deal as KBB was $7200 at the time. I could tell that the core support had been welded back on. Looked to be a quality job tho, all the panels lined up and everything looked in place otherwise. It's been a pretty reliable ride so far. Sound mechanically and electrically for the most part, except for little stuff. Now, for the scary part. Tonight I pulled the center console to investigate the audio plug (from the other thread). After taking my pictures, I was about to close it up when I noticed a little yellow plug...

Upon further investigation I found that the passenger airbag isn't connected or even there (the module is there but, no airbag itself).
It's still up for debate whether airbags save lives but, if they did would you want your family riding around protected less than they could be?

 
Rep Power: 285

I'd give you rep for this post, but I've given it to you too recently.

Thanks for posting man.

 
Rep Power: 235

lol. No prob.

 
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Wow.I always stay away from salvage.Now I know to not even look at their listings.Oh,and I can't rep you either.

 
Rep Power: 235

Yeah, I was out of a job for like 6 months and just had my red '01 EX repod and had to borrow that money from the 'rents. I was hard up and , believe it or not, it was the the only decent Honda for $2K around at the time (or so I thought). It's the first salvage I even thought about buying and it'll be the last, you can bank on that.

 
Rep Power: 367

Or do a reeealy through inspection after buying...
Some guys do buy salvages but disassembled 1/2 the car afterwards to know what needs be done.
I understand that you had not have the best conditions to do that, so that's OK for you.
Works as warning to the clueless buyers too (not you! )

 
Rep Power: 229

+1. my baby was salvaged, i should check the bags.

 
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Nice writeup +1 from me too Wow, it says what your rep power is now underneath your username. On second thought, no +1 because I have to spread it around.

 
Rep Power: 812

yeah its really hard to figure out what exactly happened that caused a salvage title. sometimes its just body repair work which is completely fine, other times it could be more serious and theres no way to know for sure without stripping the entire car. and even then, it could be mechanical. if that srs plug is disconnected, makes you wonder what other stuff like that you dont know about. im also wondering how they were able to disable the srs light on the dash from coming on. did you check the connectors under each front seat? make sure the tensioners work. airbags arent as big of a deal as the tensioners.

 
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Checked the tensioners, they're fine.

After talking to some people, apparently this is a favorite trick of rebuilders. You solder in a resistor so the SRS unit thinks there's an airbag there.

 
Rep Power: 229

it should be the law that they at least tell the buyer.

 
Rep Power: 812

ah okay yeah makes sense considering one airbag is over $500. if oyu really wanted them, you may take a chance on a used bag on ebay so long as it looks new. alot of those were taken from junked cars where the airbag never deployed.

 
Rep Power: 191

I wonder how many of the gray market 7th gen driver-side airbags have the exploding-shrapnel-in-your-face recalled inflator.

 
Rep Power: 812

ha yeah good point. airbags have always been scary to me. even if they work like normal, it can still cause alot of damage to your face esp if you wear glasses. ive actually thought about disconnecting mine. does anyone know which years of civic had defective bags?

 
Rep Power: 191

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/pr...0&summary=true

 
Rep Power: 229

my uncle is a mech and he was working on a car, either he most have shorted it, because it opened. scarred the cra@ out of him, lucky no one was working in the cab.

my SRS light comes on when i start the car then turns off right after, is this normal? my tensioners work and the car beeps if i have no seatbelt on. everything is conected under the stock seats.

 
Rep Power: 812

its normal for light to come on and then go off as part of the self check. if it never comes on, its prolly bypassed. the seatbelt tensioner there is no way to know if its working til it blows. it locks the seatbelts permanently and they will not retract (requiring complete belt and assembly replacement). so i guess if your seatbelt retracts, its good.

 
Rep Power: 229

sounds good then =D

 
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You paid $2000 for a car which usually goes for almost 4x that, you do get what you pay for. Second, it wasnt untill the last 10 years really that almost all cars had airbags, its not the end of the world. The core support would worry me a lot worse.

 
Rep Power: 235

This should probably go in the craigslist/eBay thread but, I felt it was more fitting here.

$25 local CL special. They bought it for an earlier wreck and totaled the car before they could install it. lol:

 
Rep Power: 191

Awesome deal. Congrats!

Did you check to make sure you have a driver side bag? Lol.

 
Rep Power: 235

Yeah, it's there. And you can tell it's a replacement as its a slightly different shade of black. lol

It was super easy to replace too. If I didn't have to wait the pre-requisite 3 minutes I could have been done in lees than 10 minutes. Lower the glovebox, remove the 3 nuts, pop it out, pop the new one in, put the 3 nuts back on, pull the resistor, plug it up, and cross fingers it didn't set the SRS light.

EDIT: Good news- it set the SRS light but, I just used the SRS re-set here: https://www.civicforums.com/forums/1...ght-video.html