Car totalled for airbags? Any way out?

Safety equipment which is installed as a result of new regulations is mandatory. Regulations generally exempt older vehicles. But to disable or disconnect the air bag in a car which was manufactured with it, would generally be contrary to federal regulations.

Under certain circumstances an air bag on/off switch can be installed. But it sounds like you would not meet the requirements.

If you wish to pursue having it legally deactivated, check the following link. It contains more information and a link to the request form.

If you choose to simply ignore it, your insurance company could probably cancel your insurance on the grounds that it did not meet safety standards.

Safercar.gov

You may keep your car but normaly the settlement will be less than the totaled amount.

But this is the issue with low value cars, often what you get paid is far less than the value of the car if it is totaled.

Most times insurance companies declare a car totaled once the airbags deploy due to the expense in having them repaired/replaced in a addition to the added liability that they may no longer function properly after deploying once.

If they say the car is worth, let's say $2000 but it's going to cost $3000 for all necessary repairs, then they decide to total the car. You can either take the $2000 and put towards a new car or keep the old car but then you're still going to have to pay for the $3000 in repairs. So bottom line is this: the insurance company isn't going to pay to have the repairs done if they cost more than the car is worth. Most people take the check and get another car. I've only seen in my experience a couple times where someone kept the old car and made the repairs. Reasons for this option were, that even with the settlement check to use as a downpayment, maybe they didn't have the credit to finance another car and repairing the old car was the only option. (think: $3K in repairs VS. A $15K car loan)

One thing that you also have to keep in mind is that once the insurance company has declared the vehicle a "total loss", they will not provide certain coverages on it until the repairs have been made. (This could vary by state and based on which coverages you want.) If you wanted to add back Collision coverage, you will have to provide documention from a repair facility and in most cases, take the car back to the insurance agent so they can witness that the car has been fixed.

I'll add one last thing: if you decide to keep the car and repair it, plan on being married to that car forever because it may be VERY difficult to sell/trade it once someone finds out that it was once declared a total loss (thanks to carfax).