Should I replace the airbags in our 23-year-old car?

John Paul, AAA Northeast's Car Doctor, answers a question from a reader involving an older car’s airbags.

Q. In 2001 my wife bought a new VW Cabrio. It eventually became her second car and she drove it less frequently. I married her 10 years ago and I now use the car. I try to drive it locally a couple of times a week for up to 50 minutes round trip. It only has 65,000 miles. I was wondering about the condition of the airbags. What, if anything, can I do about them? I used to use the local VW dealer until he told me VW no longer made parts for the car. I do have a reliable mechanic available.

A. There are still plenty of parts available for this car since it shares many parts with the VW Golf. Currently there are no recalls on this car for airbags or anything else safety related. There was a time when it was thought airbags should be replaced every 10 years. Over time it was determined there was no need to replace the airbags just due to age. Unless the airbag light comes on, which could indicate a system issue, I would not be concerned. By the way, my wife also had a Cabrio, and it’s one of her favorite cars.

Q. I pulled into my favorite gas station today and noticed that the tanker truck was filling the underground tanks. Is it an old wives’ tale that you should not fill up your car until the sediment has settled sometime after the tanker truck has left, or does it really make no difference?

A. I, too, used to avoid filling my car’s tank when I saw the tanker truck at a gas station. But a knowledgeable source in the petroleum industry has brought me up to date. He feels that at one time there used to be a lot of truth to this tale, but the introduction of ethanol into the gas supply has added a high degree of cleaning solvent. This ethanol has essentially cleaned much of these contaminants from both storage tanks and gas tankers. The only potential problems are any contaminants that remain in delivery barges and very large regional storage tanks. It is possible that these contaminants could make their way into delivery trucks.

Q. I have a 1979 Cadillac Seville with a V-8 engine. It is my toy. I take her out Saturday mornings for a nice peaceful drive on the highways for an hour by myself to get away from it all. The car was purchased from the midwest when it had just 8,400 miles. It now has 66,000 miles and is still in mint condition. Recently, the car had what I have been told is a fuel issue. It has an old carburetor system that no one wants to work on. My mechanic said it would be smart to change to something other than the GM carburetor. What do you think?

A. Changing to an aftermarket carburetor is an option, but would not be my first choice. You might want to consider updating it to fuel injection. Holley makes what they call the Sniper kit. It is basically a throttle body style fuel injection system. The installation is simple, and it is self-tuning, starts with a turn of the key (no pumping), and should perform better than the stock carburetor.

Q. I found a Checker cab for sale and have an interest in it as a project car. I always think of Checkers as indestructible and want to add a high-performance engine as a replacement for the seized engine. Since this car is not made any more, do you think it would be a mistake to buy it and modify it?

A. The Checker Marathon was the New York taxicab of choice. The great thing about the Checker was that it was sort of an assemblage of parts from mostly General Motors. The Checkers are very heavy (and can be prone to rust) and may not be the best choice for a performance hotrod. That being said, this car would be an easy car to add a high-performance GM engine (maybe with a supercharger) and performance transmission, add some flames, and the end result would be a very cool looking car.

John Paul is AAA Northeast’s Car Doctor. He has over 40 years of experience in the automotive business and is an ASE-certified master technician. E-mail your Car Doctor question to [email protected]. Listen to the Car Doctor podcast at johnfpaul.podbean.com.