Side Airbag Replacement

sahinoz

This is not a usual DIY post since I was very depressed and anxious during the whole thing and did not take pictures. But I believe it will shed some light on the topic of side airbag replacement since DIY attempts are very few and it is difficult to believe (that you can fix something for $750 but the dealer gave you a $5000 quote, what the hell) unless a person fixed the problem successfully. I will add some pictures later though, the ones that I took after some relief. Now is story time.

One rainy day in Ohio, a good thunderstorm, I disabled my ESP and did some little drifting, forgot it turned off, hit a puddle, lost control, tried to handle it with counter steering but it fishtailed three times right and left, and went into a spin finally, I flew out of the road into a field like 2-3ft below the road, landed when the car was sideways and from the impact my side airbags deployed although I didn't hit anything.

I had my car towed, had a flat tire fixed due to separation from the rim, drove back home with some vibrations, had 4 wheel alignment and it was fine. However, I didn't have collision insurance and they gave me a $5000 quote for the airbag system, they said they need to replace everything, including side impact sensor, main control module, seat belts and seat cover which did not make any sense whatsoever to me. So I decided to do a little research.

I'm going to skip the long story and give you the conclusion. I purchased side airbags (roof and seat), one from a salvage yard, one from a website (nissanpartscheap or everythingnissan), changed them myself, sent my control module to myairbags and had it reset, stitched the seat myself with the right thickness thread, the exact same way they were stitched originally. Everything was done in two weeks for about $750 with intense labor

The key clarifications:
- Side impact sensor is totally fine if it is not physically damaged, if you didn't hit something on the door, it is reusable, it is an accelerometer after all.
- Seat belt pretensioners do not deploy in side impacts for a Z, that's how it is programmed, but if you had a frontal impact and want to still check, you can use a voltmeter to measure the resistance across the pins, there are videos on this if you google, that's what I did just to make sure, and I got the right value.
- The control module can be reset, you do not need to purchase a new one, a new module is $800, reset service is $50, and it works.
- Seat can be stitched if you do it the right way, there is actually no difference if you match the thread type and size, but I can't defend the argument since I didn't deploy them again.

What you need:
- Get new airbags
- Have the module reset
- Install airbags, install module, get into the diagnostic mode and it will detect new components, the SRS light on dashboard will then turn off.

*Stitching the seat is optional, as it requires significant time (5-6 hours) and decent hand skills. I used two normal needles with pliers, more explanation will come about the thread type/size, stitch method, with pictures showing the progress and the final form.