Hello all,
I looking for some possible answers to the following situation. Many of you have performed various degrees of repair, upgrade and customization to your cars and I am not as familiar with my TL as i should be at this point, since i'm the original owner.

My 2003 Acura TL gets into an accident and damage occurs to the passenger side fender and inner chassis, part of the hood, passenger headlight and 1/3 of the front bumper on the passenger side is ripped off. The passenger side front tire's control arm is bent with with the anti-roll bar (swaybar) connector (link) broken. The passenger side dash airbag is the only one to deploy.

The following is undertaken:

The body is repaired to look good as new. The engine is straight and working flawlessly. The upper and lower control arm with the strut are replaced with new units. The swaybar connector is replaced with a new one. A new radius rod is installed.

First issue: The passenger front tire is 1" farther back than the left front tire.
What could be the issue?

Next the SRS airbag module was removed and sent out for reprogramming to remove the accident occurance. In no way was the area where the SRS unit is located damaged by the accident.

Second issue: The Airbag re-programmer states that the unit cannot be reprogrammed due to internal hardware issues. What hardware issues could this be if the unit was not physically damaged?
Now that the SRS unit is useless, can another one be reinstalled from another car or does it need to be programmed as well?

Additional extraneous information:
After accident, car had been stored for 1.5 years indoors. Started every month and run for 10 min.

Any insight would be appreciated. need to get her back on the road.

Carlos

How hard was the front passenger side hit?

Have you checked for any frame damage?

Jason,
I don't know how hard she was hit. I wasn't in the car at the time.

As far as the frame damage, my body mechanic didn't mention there was any.
I may have to bring it to another shop.

Carlos,

Wheel Base

The frame is still bent (short) on the rt front. Specifically the rt frame rail and rt side sub frame. Possibly the rt side torque box area. However, if the wheel was hit directly then probably the suspension mounting points are still bent.

You can check by opening the rt front door. If it pops then the frame it's still bent somewhere.


SRS

The SRS Unit was activated along with the rt front sensor because it takes a minimum of two sensors to deploy an air bag. So replace SRS Unit and clear the SRS codes then it should be fine. Assuming the other components are ok.

Thanks 01acls,
I'm sure that must be it. I'll have to check that out. Shouldn't the body mechanic have fixed that?
Should i use a 2002 SRS or a 2003 SRS? Used or new? Does it (SRS unit) need to be programmed to my car VIN?

Yes the body mechanic should of fix that.

BTW there's nothing to say that both are not bent. The frame and suspension mounts. Ie, .5 inch short on frame and 3 or 4 degrees off on the suspension mounting points. That could get you the 1" short on the wheel base.

Since the SRS system is to prevent serious injuries and possibly save a life. I would only use the correct one yhats made for your car's year, make, and model.

I almost certain that the SRS Unit does not needs to be program to the car. However, codes need to be clear. Upon start up it always does a SRS systems self check and if everything is ok then the SRS light will turn off.

Are the seat belts ok? If not that will be an issue until thats corrected.

For safety reasons you should hire a professional to service the SRS system.

Thanks for the input 1acls.

Maybe they won't reset the Air Bag because it is part of the massive recall for exploding metal parts.

Murky,
It's the SRS module not the Air bag.

On another note, does anyone know of any reason the SRS moduel could not be reset with exception of a flooded unit?
I have sent two SRS units to MyAirbags, for resetting, and they both were returned with "Hardware issues". What could these "hardware issues" be? I don't have any clue and they do not give an explanation or give any details. Is this a scam? I can't see that it is because they do refund the money minus the shipping. Has anyone had this done by them and it been successful?

The SRS Unit can't be reset if the mechanical sensor in the unit have been activated. They can only reset the unit if it is a software problem (DTC).


FYI

Wheel base: 108.1"

Front axle tire tread to tire tread: 61.2"


All measurements are center to center with the front axles squared to the car.

If this is true 1acls, then this business of resetting the SRS's accident codes after an accident that deploys the airbag, is false.

MyAirbags claims they can clear the accident codes after an accident. According to what you stated, that can't be done, Only software issues can be rectified.

Therefore anyone in an accident deploying the airbags must replace the SRS unit for new along with the airbags and sensors involved, correct?

Not exactly, the reason why is bc a minimum of two sensors have to activated to deploy an airbag. You're assuming the SRS Unit is one of the two sensors that's been activated but, thats not always the case.

ie. Two of three sensors activated during a front end collision. The two sensors at the front frame rails activated and the SRS Unit' s sensor in the cabin didn't bc the energy wave was dissipated in the front crumple zone and stopped before reaching the firewall. So in this scenario two sensors activated deploying the air bags but the SRS Unit is intact (sensor still good). The crash data stored in the Unit can be cleared and the Unit may be reuse.

Likewise, not all SRS Units are made as combination units. Some manufacturers choose to make their cabin crash sensors and SRS computer as two separate units. In this case the computer part is reusable unless it was damaged during the accident, directly or electronically.

1acls,
I just spoke to a tech at MyAirbags and he stated that most of SRS modules from 01-03 Acura TL and 01 -03 Honda Accords have issues where they cannot be reset and that some of the new units don't work right out of the box. Is this true? have others experienced this? The cost of a new hoping it will work is costly at $300-$400 each.

My next question is will the SRS unit still work if you do not reset the crash data? If the original airbags are replaced will the unit still activate the new airbags? I guess i'm asking if it (SRS Module) is a one time use only module?

Bottom line is this. As long as the SRS light is on air bags will not deploy due to the passenger possibly being to close to the air bag bc seat belts may not hold the passenger back. The air bags deploy at around 200-300 MPH, which can cause serious if not fatal injury.

Each scenario is different there's no one answer to your questions. The best answer is... in most cases the Unit is a one time use.

The cost effective way is to change the obvious sensors first then see if it passes the self diagnostic test at start up. If not, then read or clear the codes and go from there.

Thanks for your input. I will try this.