BRANDON, Fla. — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a warning earlier this year after multiple people died in crashes in which it was discovered vehicles had counterfeit or non-functioning airbags.
One victim was a 23-year-old mother from Florida.
In August, the I-Team reported how a man bought two used Volvos from the same Hillsborough County used car dealership and learned they had been in accidents.
Mechanics discovered both cars had non-functioning airbags and seatbelts.
When the customer learned this, he took the vehicles back.
Now I-Team investigator Adam Walser has tracked down the new owner of one of those Volvos and arranged for him to get it checked by a mechanic to see if the safety equipment was properly repaired before it was sold again.
We were able to identify the new owner of one of the cars as U.S. Navy veteran Gilbert Santiago using the car’s VIN number.
“It was mind-blowing"
Santiago describes himself as an easygoing guy.
“Kind of laid back and reserved. I don’t get too rattled about too many things,” Santiago said.
When his Volkswagen Jetta was rear-ended, Santiago shrugged it off and went to HGreg in Brandon, where he bought a 2022 Volvo S60.
He used his insurance settlement from the earlier crash as his down payment for the Volvo, which he thought was safe.
“I'm trying to do the right thing by taking care of myself in this vehicle,” Santiago said.
What we told Santiago about his car and what we later learned did get him rattled.
We met Santiago at Brazzeal Automotive in Tampa, where he agreed to get his Volvo’s safety systems checked out by a certified mechanic.
Earlier, we sent Santiago information he didn’t know about his car, including that it was sold at auction after an accident in which a report says multiple airbags were deployed.
Santiago said he wasn’t told the car was returned to HGreg by another customer who took it to a mechanic and discovered issues with the front airbag and seatbelt pretensioner.
“It was mind-blowing just to know that they knew this was an issue prior,” Santiago said.
“Seatbelts didn’t work. Airbag didn’t work”
Ron Egert bought the Volvo from HGreg last year.
“Seatbelts didn’t work. Airbag didn’t work,” Egert said.
Egert said he signed a Carfax report HGreg gave him showing a previous accident, but he said he was told it passed multi-point inspections.
The company advertised multi-point inspections for all the used cars it sells on its website.
Egert took the car to the Sarasota Volvo dealership after his airbag warning light came on.
A technician discovered the driver’s airbag was rusted and had markings from a junkyard. Wires had been tampered with, and the airbag was incorrect for the vehicle.
So, Egert took it back to HGreg.
“I showed them the pictures. And I said you’re taking this car back. I go... this car is unsafe to drive. No one should be driving this car,” Egert said.
HGreg’s spokesperson said the company “only purchases vehicles through the most reputable auction companies” and “conducts a multi-point inspection,” which includes “a review of diagnostic indicators."
She also wrote in a statement, "If, for whatever reason, HGreg believes the vehicle airbags would not operate as intended, it would not be retailed by HGreg."
“Six grand out of my pocket”
But HGreg did sell the car to Santiago months later.
He almost immediately had problems.
“It was the airbag light that came on and said drive to the dealership immediately," Santiago said.
He said the technician at the dealership told him used salvage parts were installed in his car.
That technician’s photo shows the same junkyard markings as the picture taken by Egert’s mechanic at a different dealership several months earlier.
Santiago paid to replace multiple airbags and related components.
“Probably around the ballpark of six grand out of my pocket,” Santiago said.
He said he contacted HGreg.
“And they said it passed their inspection. Nothing was showing that was wrong with it. So there’s nothing they can do,” Santiago said.
The Carfax shows that the airbag system was checked 17 days before Santiago bought it.
Photos taken by Santiago’s technician show wires wrapped in electrical tape, like those taken by Egert’s technician, who wrote that the wires to the airbag “have been tampered with."
“There’s something wired in there. It’s all taped up”
We asked Santiago to meet us at Brazzeal Automotive because his mechanic in Tampa did not discover issues with the seatbelt pretensioner we learned about from Egert’s report from the mechanic at the Volvo dealership in Sarasota.
“Now it’s going through all the different modules in the car,” certified technician Chris Wallin told us as he hooked up a diagnostic tool.
“I don’t see any active codes,” Wallin said, which would normally indicate all safety systems were working.
But when Wallin popped open the interior door panel, he found the seatbelt pretensioner system wasn’t plugged into the wiring harness, which would allow it to deploy.
“This should be plugged into here,” Wallin said, pointing to wires wrapped in electrical tape. “This is the seatbelt pretensioner. And it looks like there’s something wired in there. It's all taped up.”
Wallin peeled back electrical tape to find a resistor.
A resistor is a passive component in an electrical circuit. It can be used to regulate or limit the flow of current.
Wallin said in automotive repair, they can be used in troubleshooting electrical issues.
“What they’ve done is just take a resistor that matches the resistance that the pretensioner is supposed to have and just kind of shoved it in that wiring harness to trick it into thinking it’s got a good pretensioner,” Wallin said of Santiago’s car.
Wallin said this was done intentionally, but it’s unclear who installed the resistor.
Pretensioners, like airbags, must be replaced after deployment in a crash.
The resistor appeared to be the same one photographed by Egert’s mechanic at the Sarasota Volvo dealership a year earlier.
Wallin said the resistor was installed to keep the seatbelt restraint system warning light from coming on.
“No other purpose,” he said.
Wallin said because the pretensioner was not plugged in, the car’s airbag and seatbelt systems would not work properly, even with new airbags.
“That seatbelt, it’s meant to pull you tight in the event of an accident, so you don’t go flying into the airbag. The airbags and the seatbelt work together,” Wallin said.
“That’s something that I have to get replaced and repaired right away because I'm putting myself behind danger,” Santiago said.
After our interview, Santiago returned to the Tampa Volvo dealership to have the repair done. It cost him another $1,500.
“I hope HGreg takes accountability and pays for some of the damages I had to fix myself,” Santiago said.
HGreg’s response
We contacted HGreg on Sept. 19 with a list of questions, but they didn’t answer them.
A spokesperson replied in an email, “Thank you for bringing the case of Mr. Santiago’s purchase to our attention. We will connect with the customer directly.”
More than a month after receiving that response, Santiago said he hadn’t heard from anyone from the company.
“They need to be held accountable for that because we are talking about people’s lives when they’re out there on the road,” Santiago said.
If you’ve discovered your airbag or seatbelt pretensioner systems are not functioning properly in a used vehicle you have purchased in Florida, you can report that to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
You can check for free if a used car has had prior airbag deployment by contacting Carfax using this link.
You can also email the I-Team at adam@abcactionnews.com if you believe you have been sold a used car in Florida without functioning safety equipment.
