GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

I'm still rocking my 2004 vibe. I've also got a new driver that I thought this car would be an excellent first car for. Unfortunately, the airbag light recently came on. My Wife took it to a stealership to see if it was needing any recalls, etc - it did need some recall stuff, but apparently the parts are no longer available, and they had no way to actually do anything about the recall without parts. I wasn't there, but my wife said the guy was making calls and looking at websites trying to find replacement parts for close to an hour without any luck. He told her that the only way he'd expect us to be able to fix it is to go to a junkyard and find/pull parts and install them ourselves. I a few questions:
1 - How unsafe is it to drive this car. I thought I read somewhere that the airbags can throw metal into the car (or your face/neck at passengers, etc). I'm also seeing that it might not go off or go off when it isn't supposed to. Any thoughts on what scenario I might be looking at? How would I know?
2 - Do you think the stealership guy just gave my wife bad information, or are there truly no parts available other than "pulls" from junkyard cars?
3 - Would you consider just disabling the airbag and letting a new driver drive with it disabled? If so, how would one go about that? And just the driver side, or passenger side too?

Thanks!

welcome to genvibe

if you're the original owner,how did you go so long without dealing with the airbag recall yet? My 03 had both driver and passenger bags replaced under recall.

If you are in the USA, then NHTSA oversees recalls, and in the recall section of the FAQa at the bottom of https://www.nhtsa.gov/resources-investigations-recalls

Do recalls expire?
Once a vehicle has been recalled, that recall never expires.

so I'd expect GM to still be on the hook to perform the recall.



The same airbags used in Vibes were used in Toyota Matrixes, and likely Corollas, I'd expect there are still replacement parts available somewhere, even if not in the GM parts supply system.

Dealerships get paid by corporate to do recalls. Maybe the service tech didn't know what to do. You hear stories about mechanics and service departments pulling con jobs on women, and if that's what happened to your wife you should be pissed.

I'd start with talking to the head of the service department at the dealership, or perhaps the dealership's overall boss. Then take it to GM corporate.

The advice of having you get one from a junkyard and putting it in yourself is BS. Not only are they still responsible to fix the safety issue, but airbags can be dangerous, you should get someone qualified to take the risk of messing with it.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/ta ... -spotlight has info on the airbag recalls, and the affected cars "do not drive warning" list at https://www.nhtsa.gov/takata-recall-spo ... ve-warning includes "Certain 2003-2004 Pontiac Vibes" Use the tools there to look up your VIbe's VIN to see for sure.

If it were my car, I wouldn't disable the airbags, I'd fight to get GM to fix it. As for the do not drive bit, that'll be a risk, however slight, on the new driver, who, if they are new to driving, will be statistically more likely to be in an accident. For what it's worth, I don't remember anyone here personally reporting either an inadvertent airbag deployment or one that went off and shot shrapnel.

Sucks though, shouldn't be on you to do anything other than to lose the time to schedule the recall work and the couple hours at the dealership while they do the work.

Keep us posted on the progress of the battle

If I were you I would find a body shop that can pull the code for you, I think it takes a special scanner to read the airbag codes. I had two airbag recalls done on my 04 and still got a light a few years later. I don't remember the code but if I remember right it pointed to the clock spring in the steering wheel. I never did fix it before it got totaled though. If I remember right though the recalls were for the airbag inflators spraying shrapnel, but not something that would code.

I also believe it could be something other than an airbag recall issue. If the dealer read the code(s), you should be able to get that report.

Mark wrote: ↑Sun Nov 23, 2025 2:36 pm If I were you I would find a body shop that can pull the code for you, I think it takes a special scanner to read the airbag codes. I had two airbag recalls done on my 04 and still got a light a few years later. I don't remember the code but if I remember right it pointed to the clock spring in the steering wheel. I never did fix it before it got totaled though. If I remember right though the recalls were for the airbag inflators spraying shrapnel, but not something that would code.

This.
My last airbag code was a clock spring failure.
I was lucky and had a parts Vibe in the driveway, so it was a no charge repair for me.

If you're lucky and it is the clockspring, and even luckier and the Toyota part works, it might be as cheap as $30 on eBay for a non-OEM part.