- A Toyota GR Corolla owner says his airbags deployed while he was simply driving down the road.
- Despite no external body damage, Toyota allegedly claimed the system worked as it should.
- Because of that, it reportedly denied his warranty coverage, leaving him with no way to fix it.
Picture yourself driving down a familiar road when, out of nowhere, your side curtain airbags deploy. There’s no accident, no strange potholes in the road, and no bevy of lights on in the dash. Then, imagine taking your car to the dealer only for them to say that the system worked correctly and that it isn’t covered under warranty. That’s allegedly what happened to a Toyota GR Corolla customer. And now, they’ve turned to legal counsel for help.
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According to the owner, the incident happened back in May of this year, and the airbags going off might not be the most shocking part. The owner bought the GR Corolla on May 1 of this year. The incident happened just 23 days later, and they say they were going straight and didn’t hit anything that they know of.
No Warning, No Crash, But the Airbags Went Off
The road they were traveling down was one they’re familiar with, but the experience was still startling. “This was one of the scariest moments of my life,” the owner said on Reddit. “I could not see left or right outside of the car. I could only see in front of me. The car was inspected at the scene where I parked by both the fire department and the towing company. They were equally as perplexed.”
Things became more complicated when the first repair shop declined to touch the car. Despite being a diagnostic repair shop, they “refused to touch it” and told the owner to take it back to the dealer. That sure sounds as though they could tell something wasn’t quite right here. The owner followed that direction, but things didn’t exactly go as they’d hoped.
The Dealership Experience
GR Warranty Denied
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According to the owner, the car went back to the dealer in Daytona Beach on May 24. It’s been there ever since. According to Toyota, a Field Technical Specialist finally inspected the car on June 9. They determined that the system was “operating properly.” How can that be given the account from the driver? Here’s what Toyota told them.
“Please be advised that the airbag system is a predictive system. In addition, the side curtain airbags may deploy under the situation where the angle of the vehicle tip-up is marginal by monitoring vehicle motion such as roll angle, roll rate, and lateral deceleration. The roll motion that occurred was interpreted and recorded by the (event data recorder) EDR as an impending rollover, and the side curtain airbags and the seatbelt pretensioners were commanded to deploy. Our review of the incident did not reveal any defects with the vehicle.”
Based on that explanation, it seems the event data recorder detected a potential rollover, even though the driver ultimately maintained control. Regardless of the lack of actual damage or whatever really went down, Toyota’s findings might have condemned this GR Corolla.
“Based on our inspection findings, we are unable to offer any assistance,” it wrote. Importantly, Toyota obtained permission from the driver to view both the EDR files and the images from cameras integrated into the car. It’s unclear exactly what the company found at this stage, but we’ve reached out to Toyota for additional insight.
Where To From Here
It’s worth pointing out that Toyota has had its fair share of problems with side curtain airbags. It’s recalled thousands of vehicles in the past, though often it’s because the airbags might not deploy at all. Still, those cases highlight the possibility of electrical faults playing a role in unexpected behavior. Adding to that, the GR Corolla has previously shown signs of overreacting to perceived safety threats.
During our initial test of the car, journalists Jason Fenske and Jason Cammisa tracked the car at Utah Motorsports Park as well. During their run, the car called emergency services at one point when a helmet came into contact with the B-pillar a bit harder than the system seemingly expected.
That earlier incident also raises another question. If this GR Corolla truly detected a rollover event, why didn’t it automatically contact emergency services? Hopefully, Toyota can provide us with some insight there. As for the owner, they’ve obtained legal counsel and are staying quiet for now. Here’s to hoping that we can all get to the bottom of what went down here.
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