Four problems related to side/window air bag have been reported for the 1999 Mercury Cougar. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
While parked in driveway driver side airbag deployed inadvertently. The manufacturer was contacted. The insurance company was also contacted but stated the failure was not covered.
Passenger side air bad deploys in a parked car causing injury and damage worth $3,500 and Ford refuses to pay for it. On 31st may 2003, we went to the library to drop off our books. We parked our car, and I got down to drop the books. My wife, who was sitting on the passenger side turned around to pick more of the books from the back seat and her side air bag blew out. She brought her hand forward to cover her face and was hit by the blown air bag. Airbag deployed when the car was parked. The car is a 1999 Mercury Cougar smoke started coming out and we had to call the fire department. Per, fire department captain, they have never seen this case before. Luckily, the smoke was just the air bag powder. Side air bag deployed. Air bag cover hit the windshield, which cracked the whole windshield. The force of deployment also popped out air vent and the dashboard. When we called up Ford, they asked us to claim it through our insurance. But when we told them that it did not make sense they told us send the vehicle to a Ford dealer where they can run diagnostics. Current mileage is around 64,000. Ford says that one of the modules was faulty and also this module has warranty of 5 years or 50,000 miles. But this was not mentioned in any of their service manuals. Also nobody pointed this out when the car had the Ford recommended 60,000-mile maintenance and check we also made repeated calls to Ford, to give us in writing that the air bags deployed due to faulty unit. But they are refusing to do so. Progressive, our insurance agent has said they cannot cover it and that we have to talk to Ford (they did say that if this incident caused a collision, they would have paid for it). Ford says this is out of warranty. How do we come to know which part is going to cost us in future because it has run out of warranty, if nobody points out the problem during routine maintenance.
While traveling on the highway without physical contact with another vehicle. The driver side airbag went off and crack the windshield. Please fill in additional information dealer is aware of the problem. Ts.
Vehicle was traveling at 35mph and hit a pothole a tire blew out, and driver's side and passenger's side airbags deployed. Dealer says the pothole messed up the airbag sensor.