Mini Hood
Mini Hood
US $14.99
Mini Cooper Air Bag Deployment?
If a mini cooper's hood and front/rear fender has been replaced due to damage would the airbags have deployed? I am looking at a 2002 mini cooper with salvage title that has already been repaired. He claims the airbags didn't deploy and are intact. But wondering if that is possible? Also the glovebox latch is broken and won't close so wondering if that could be due to airbag deployment?
It's very possible. If the deceleration of the car in the accident was not high enough to reach the deployment threshold of the airbags, then they won't trigger. In other words, it could easily have been a relatively low-speed collision, but if the vehicle was a truck (for example) it could easily still do a lot of damage to the Mini.
Be very wary of buying a salvage title car. Make sure you know exactly what was done to fix it, and who did the work. Ask for pictures and receipts for the parts, so you can see the extent of the work, and have it professionally inspected to see if the work was done properly.
With that said, people get confused and think that a salvage title automatically indicates severe damage. It does not. It only means that the insurance company determined that the cost to repair the car was estimated to exceed its value. For an older car, or a cheaper car, even relatively little damage can be enough to total it, while for a newer or more expensive car, even major damage might be fixed without the car being totaled.
The glovebox latch is probably unrelated to the accident. Things like that break for all sorts of reasons.