For ours, no, but for newer airbags, yes. Airbags use a chemical reaction to create the nitrogen gas to inflate them. Older airbags like our cars, and pretty much everything prior to early 00s used Sodium Azide which was stable, however when deployed it would also create a hot toxic gas. If you were ever in a 90s car that had airbags deploy, you know the smell. The toxicity isn’t enough to really do damage, but combined with the heat, which has been known to cause pretty severe burns, was less than ideal, but not any more dangerous as it aged. In the late 90s, Takata patented a new process, which used Ammonium Nitrate. These airbags didn’t produce toxic gases, or high enough temperatures to burn people, and were also cheaper to produce than the old sodium azide ones, so pretty much all the manufacturers started using Takata’s airbags. However over time, especially if exposed to moisture, Ammonium Nitrate becomes more volatile. This was the source of the whole Takata lawsuit. Their airbags over time were degrading, and in such a way that the chemical reaction became much more powerful than intended, and the rest of the unit was unable to contain the explosion, so metal pieces would fly at people’s faces at 400mph. Takata’s fix for this, starting in 2008, was to put a desiccant in the airbag to absorb the moisture, which satisfied NHTSA, however desiccants can only absorb so much moisture, and eventually every airbag Takata made will become a bomb. After the Takata lawsuit, manufacturers stopped using Ammonium Nitrate, and started using Guanidine Nitrate, which also breaks down over time with exposure to moisture, however it becomes less volatile, not more. So in 20 years, a new car’s airbags may not function, however at least they won’t be a bomb going off in your face. So in short, cars made in the 90s, the airbags might burn you, and they will smell horrible, but no lasting harm. Cars made after 2017 will eventually have ineffective airbags, but not for another 20-30 years. However cars made with Takata’s upgraded airbags which were used from 2008 to 2016, will all eventually become bombs, and there is no exhaustive list of cars that have these airbags, so you would have to check yourself. If you do find you have a Takata airbag that is more than 10 years old, my suggestion would be to disable those airbags unless a Guanidine Nitrate replacement can be found.
