Have Mr T made my airbag dangerous?

[Peter Laborne]

Like nearly everyone else I had the classic glovebox rattle. Mr T said that they had put a load of extra padding around the glovebox and airbag in order to stop the noise.

However, recently some of this padding has started to slip and I have noticed that it is coming out from the edge of the plastic covering the airbag. I'm concerned that if my airbag fires, then this extra padding will be flung at great speed into my passengers face.

Is this something to be worried about or am I being a bit paraniod?

[Slacey]

Worth getting checked at any rate I reckon.

[Anonymous]

Peter:

Unlikely to be a problem I reckon.  If the airbag fires, it tears out a rectangular section of plastic from the dash section you are concerned about.  Having just looked at my car, you can actually work out where the edges of this section are by pressing down on the dash - you can see lines where the plastic is thinner so that the airbag tears out a flap as it expands.  The section that tears out ends about 4 or 5 cm from the edge of the section where I imagine your padding is slipping out of, so you'd have to have a lot of loose material to have a problem.  

Hope this makes some sense!
Andy

[Peter Laborne]

Cheers Andy. I thought that the whole plastic section where the airbag fires from flipped up. I had no idea that it would seperate into sections.

At least you have calmed my nerves. I had a horrible vision of the airbag firing, heading towards my passengers face at the same time their head headed towards the airbag. Having a foreign object heading towards their eyes wasn't a pleasent thought.

[Anonymous]

Hey guess what - I have a rattley glove box in the non-2 car, I never had it in the 2.