The transmission went out on my wife's POS Taurus a few weeks ago and we found ourselves looking for a new vehicle.

We came upon a 2011 Impala (with 13K miles) that was wrecked, but only needed a little work (driver airbag, windshield, bumper and tail light). Bought it for $10,200.

Right now all is fixed except for the airbag, where I've hit a roadblock. I have a new airbag on hand and ready to go in, BUT...I've been told that I need to replace the control module/sensor before I put the new airbag in. Is this true? I was also told that the old module may trigger the new airbag to deploy once installed. Would hate to waste that bag.

Another question I have: The radio is in "LOC" mode and the seatbelts are locked out and do not release. Are these problems attributed to the previous airbag deployment? Will simply replacing the blown bag fix these issues? Will those problems require a new control module? New seatbelts??

Thanks for any/all answers.

 

Hmm...dead forum...guess I'll look elsewhere.

 

No, not "dead," but full of cautious people. I venture for most of us it would never occur to buy a wreck that was in an accident with airbag deployment, fix it up with help from strangers with unknown credentials over the Internet, and then put the wife in it.