general problems of the 2001 Toyota Sienna

Toyota Sienna has air bag flashing, it just last 12/12/20014, so I brought it to fremont Toyota for check up and told them about the flashing air bag ask them if if is part of Toyota air bag recall. They charge me $152. 00 to find out the problem. After 2 hrs, they say, they need more hours to find the problem and they are charging me another $152. 00. I thought the $152. 00 in the first place they tell you the problem. Is this right when they estimate the hour. They can diagnose the problem. To pay extra I don"t have enough money. . Is this air bag problem is Toyota recall. I am afraid for my family safety. Thanks: conrad.

The driver was unable to stop the van in time and the passenger side of front bumper of the 2001 Toyota Sienna van hit the wall of a house but no air bags came out or inflated. The van is totally damaged and not driveable.

After stopping for registration, my son and I got back into our 2001 Toyota Sienna minivan to continue on to our previously registered site at a cub scouts "jamboree". I think that I had a seizure (I don't remember anything at this time). Neither I nor my child was buckled in, and we travelled across a field and across a small creek, with the end result the head-on collision into the far side of the creek. I was badly injured, and my son was declared "brain dead" 5 days later. No air bags deployed, and I am now reporting it because if they had, we may have had an entirely different result. After researching this particular problem, I discovered that the failure to deploy air bags was cited by a previous author. I am intrigued, to say the least. . . .

On October 28,2006, my son and I returned to the site of the accident, the nc state highway patrol driving track. Once through registration, we re-entered the 2001 Toyota Sienna minivan. Unfortunately, we did not use the seat belts, since we could see the spot we had been assigned. Sometime during this move, I must have had a seizure, since the only thing I remember is someone helping me out of the driver's side door. Once at the hospital, I lapsed into a coma, which was to last for the next 18 days. Once I woke up, I was told that my son had died, and was buried. It was stated to me that we weren't wearing our seat belts. I said, "what about the airbags?" they hadn't deployed, it turned out. I realize that we would have been more safe if we had been wearing our seat belts. But I also know that the airbags should have deployed, since the estimated speed at time of impact was 50 mph. Since we had gone through a creek, and slammed into the opposite creek bank in a basic head on collision. I also know that things would have been considerably different if the airbags had deployed, since both my son and I sustained traumatic brain injuries (tbi's) . Once I was able to use a computer, I researched airbag failures in Toyota vehicles, and found numerous incidents and anecdotes of other peoples's experience with the same problem - failure of the airbags to deploy, when it was clearly obvious that they were needed. I also wondered about the commonality of the problem, and began to suspect a company-wide policy to make it very hard for the airbags to deploy, since it was a hot topic then to talk about airbags as an enemy, since some reports were noting accidents and injuries attributed to the airbags' mis-deployment. I am not at peace with the Toyota company's usual denial of anything not working perfectly and properly and that there was a safety issue involving their airbags.