Airbag randomly exploded? Wtf

[freezebox]

Hi,

I am posting on behalf of my GF, she was driving her car today (VW POLO 1.4 2006) and out of nowhere the passenger side seat airbag exploded, there was nobody else in the car apart from her and there is no damage to the car anywhere. None of the other airbags went off, only the passenger side seat airbag.

The fire service came because she called 999, they inspected the car as she was scared because of the smoke from the airbag explosion. The fire brigade drove the car afterwards and noticed that the power steering was no longer working, are the two somehow linked? I didn't want to go tell insurance as the claim would probably be worth more than the car. Will a VAG-COM reset of codes and a new seat get the car back to how it was and has anyone heard of anything like this happening in the past?

The car is located at the fire station at the moment.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Rallyman]

You need to get the codes dragged off the ECU, many cars bring up lots of errors when the airbag is deployed and shut down various systems
If its a motor assisted steering the airbag could have tripped out the control lines / fuses and disabled the steering this way
Somethings shorted just for that airbag and triggered it on its own - otherwise all the other would have gone off, check the wiring diagrams where they go and have a look...