Lexus IS 350 Airbag Problems

Airbag complaints by model year

Which parts fail

• Knee bolster
  2
• Frontal
  1

Components named in complaints (front, side and curtain air bags, sensors and inflators).

Mileage when the problem started

• Under 25k
  00%
• 25k–50k
  417%
• 50k–75k
  625%
• 75k–100k
  833%
• 100k–150k
  417%
• 150k+
  28%

What owners report

Tl* the contact owned a 2010 Lexus IS 350. While the contact's husband was driving at an unknown speed, another vehicle rear ended his vehicle. The contact's vehicle spun and struck a barrier on the passenger side. The air bags did not deploy. The contact's husband suffered fractured ribs that required medical attention. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a tow yard and the insurance company declared the vehicle to be a total loss. The vehicle was not taken to an independent mechanic or dealer to determine the air bag failure. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The VIN was unknown. The failure mileage was approximately 88,000.

Tl* Takata recall. The contact owns a 2010 Lexus IS 350. The contact received notification of an air bag recall and stated that the part was not available within a reasonable time frame to schedule the recall repair. The dealer did not give a specific date for when the part would become available. The manufacturer could not provide an estimated date for when the vehicle would receive the recall repair. The NHTSA campaign number was unknown. The contact was not experiencing a failure. VIN tool confirms parts not available.

On November 8, 2017, I was involved in a traffic accident in santa monica, ca as I was making a left turn from an alley onto a two-lane residential street. The other vehicle struck me on the left front corner of my car. While the airbags of the other car were deployed , none of my airbags were deployed. Further, my shoulder belt failed to properly restrain me and the top of my head struck the left 'a-pillar'. Soon after the accident, I requested that Lexus download my car's edr( aka "black box" ). The injury to the top of my head did not turn out to be serious. However, about 2-3 weeks following the accident, I started having pain in my lower right abdomen. This was soon thereafter diagnosed as a right side inguinal hernia. About this same time, I received a download of the raw data from my car's edr. …

There has been an intermittent airbag warning light on my vehicle. When taken to the dealer for service, unfortunately the light went out, and no code was captured. It was returned to the dealer recently, and a fault code was recognized; a possible knee airbag issue. When talking with the service writer, their technicians had mentioned it was most likely a short in a wiring harness at a cost of $3500 to replace. I was told all of the airbags May be inoperative with the warning light on, but the dealership was not sure. A number of online Lexus blogs talk about similar circumstances and struggling why a faulty (defective) wiring harness that disables all airbags IS not a safety recall. It shouldn't have to be a fatal crash due to inoperative airbags to warrant a recall.

I bought my car used in 2015 and about 1,000 miles after driving it off the lot the airbag light came on. I took it to the local Lexus dealership and they diagnosed it as the driver's knee airbag and said the entire airbag wire harness needed to be replaced and quoted me $3,500. I looked up the issue and found that Lexus had previously issued a tsib on it (l-sb-0167-08). I also read many owners around that time were able to get it fixed under warranty (72mo or 70K miles). Unfortunately that expired for me 2 years before I even bought the car. I'm very frustrated that they know this IS an issue, that it's related to airbag safety and they are still asking me to pay thousands. It's been two years and the light IS still on. Ps: the dealership told me several times that I wasn't affected by the taketa recall but I later got the recall notice.

My airbag light IS on. I did some research online and Lexus had issued a TSB for the airbag light for 2006-2007 (some 2008) Lexus IS models. This TSB was only covering 5 years or 70K miles. I'm currently at 90K miles and this airbag light IS on. Apparently the airbag harness the cars were fitted with were too short, and causes a fault in the system when one of the connectors related to the airbag system gets loosened up. This disables the entire airbag system from what I have read. This seems like an extremely unsafe manufacturing fault, and should have been a recall as opposed to a TSB limited to a warranty period.

When the car was turned on, our airbag light came on and stayed on. Scanlon Lexus of ft myers, fl evaluated the problem and concluded that the driver-side knee airbag IS the problem and that the wiring harness needs to be replaced. They also stated that Lexus IS aware of the issue for this model and that the design IS defective. However, the car IS outside of a warranty, so they will do nothing to fix it for free. The cost was approximately 2100 just for parts (not including 8 hours of labor). They also stated that when the light IS on, the entire airbag safety system will not deploy. This IS a huge safety concern that IS not caused by normal wear and tear on a vehicle, but by faulty design. Therefore, I believe this should be a safety recall.

The airbag light on the cluster IS on. Happened randomly one morning upon start up of vehicle and hasn't went away even after resetting the battery. I and several other 2nd generation IS owners from club Lexus have the same issue and it IS attributed to a loose wire harness. In the event of a collision there's a high risk that the airbag will not deploy. Please fix this as this IS a serious and fatal issue. It was a fairly well know issues amongst IS owners and this I feel that Lexus should be responsible for the fix.

Related recalls (5)

NHTSA investigations