In practical terms, defective airbag problems usually show up as one of these scenarios:
- Airbag fails to deploy even though the crash severity appears to call for deployment.
- Airbag deploys incorrectly (wrong timing or unexpected behavior).
- Injury occurs during deployment—for example, facial trauma consistent with restraint system performance issues.
- A component-level issue is later identified during repairs or inspection (such as inflator- or sensor-related failures).
In Puyallup, many claims begin after a driver reports symptoms that don’t match what they expected from an “ordinary” restraint system event—then medical records start telling a more complete story.


