Advice on E34 airbag wheel

[m-racer]

My frequent driver is a relatively low mileage (122k) E34 535i. It has the stock airbag steering wheel. No issues that I know of. Should I be concerned about the 22 y/o airbag? I like the wheel just fine, but have been thinking about replacing it with an MTech wheel. Already know about the insurance issues, etc. My question is "should I be thinking about replacing the wheel because of the age of the airbag?". If anyone has any personal experience, I would appreciate it. Could just be my obsessive nature. Thanks, Tim

[mooseheadm5]

I blew an airbag from an E31 that had been sitting in water (for a demonstration) and it worked fine.

[Son of a]

I theorize that early commercial airbags, much like VCRs from a decade earlier, will be among the last of their respective kinds ever to die. The degree to which the earliest generations of certain consumer products used to be over-built as compared to the modern ethos of disposability is shocking.

Also the lack of widespread reports on the even earlier airbags going off like grenades is very telling. The early e34 airbag wheels might be stylistically off-putting, but they don't seem to be going off either. As always though, YMMV.

[wkohler]

I wouldn't worry about it. I see plenty of E34s in the yards which have had airbags deploy, and plenty more where they didn't in front end collisions. I didn't see parts of anyone's head or anything or any blood anywhere. We have this one '94 525i here that seriously looks like they had it detailed before they called the wrecker. Crazy. That didn't really have anything to do with the airbag though.

When I got my first touring, the wheel was in really crappy shape (oily hands or something - ick). Anyway, I wanted to change it out but it was a dual airbag car so I thought it would be twice as dumb to do that than it would be to just leave it. I've got one of those three spoke fancy pants E36 wheels now, but I have to clean all of the white paint flecks off of it which weren't disclosed in the listing.

[jimoreno]

When my son's car got totaled (95 530) both airbags deployed and I believe that was the reason he came out without a scratch (he had his safety belt on also).



They did their job!

[m-racer]

Thanks all. Given the comments and out of sight (700 bucks) price of new MT2 wheels, I believe I will leave it be. Good to see that the airbags did their job after all that time.

[B7Turbo]

Excellent question Tim, I was wondering about the same thing myself regarding my 91 B10.

[rmiddendorf]

Yep- thanks for the discussion. I've been wondering the same thing about my E32's airbag. Sounds like I should keep it and relax about that for now.