passenger airbag leather ripples - cost to fix?

I don't remember where I've read it, but I'm pretty much sure that there was a member that removed the air bag, pulled away the leather and reglued it after stretching it flat. If its only the air bag and not the whole dash, it should be a fairly easy fix. Even if you had to bring it to the professionals, it shouldn't be too expensive.

 

30 min to pull the door off and then have a shop restretch it and reinstall. $500 should cover it.

 

To answer your question: Yes, the "door" of the airbag is one unit integrated with the airbag cartridge.

I performed this on my 360. Here's an overview (from memory) with some tips:

1. Disable battery from master switch in front boot.
2. Remove glove-box.
3. Partially remove airbag (it slides out as one cartridge like unit (leather face and all).

3A - The rear of the airbag cartridge is attached to the front dash frame by way of two bolts.
The material through which those bolts run are a collection of u-shaped shims which seem to allow for fine adjustments of the airbag position. Be careful with these as you remove the airbag as they will spill everywhere as soon as you remove the bolts and start sliding the airbag out. Keep track of how many shims are used on each side and keep them together and in the same order so that you can insert them again when its time to reassemble everything.


4. As you slide it out, feel for connector cable sticky glued to center dash. . It should be a yellow shielded cable. (if I recall). Disconnect and slide out the cartridge carefully. Note - I was a bit apprehensive here as airbags may explode due to static discharge, etc...take precautions as necessary.

5. Mine had come loose from the top so I used the 3M adhesive that is recommended in this thread:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=288055&highlight=stretch+leather

Notes: I only sprayed the loose part of the covering, pulled it tight and pressed it together around the edge. I did not fully detach the whole leather covering and spray adhesive over the entire surface as is recommended in other threads. My thinking was as follows: I did not want to introduce an additional adhesive force to this airbag door...why? My thinking is that it should be left as close to original design as possible so as to ensure proper inflation rate and direction should it ever need to discharge. Inhibiting its normal operation by way of additional adhesive, seems to me, could cause improper operation. YMMV

6. Finally, you'll need a smallish 1/4" drive torque wrench to reattach the airbag bolts from step 3A. I ordered this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000N7D32C/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00

Not the finest tool but it did the job well.

Reassembly is basically just the reverse of assembly. The shims are a PITA to get back together.

Good luck,
Juan.

 

Thanks for the write up Juan. You've got me more frightened about the airbag deploying than recovering but I have added this to my to-do list.