Amber Finlayson was driving at 100km/h and accelerating to overtake when her airbag went off.
"Nothing actually hit me. I just recall my seat belt pinning me back in my seat and I could just reach the steering wheel," she told Fair Go.
Finlayson doesn't remember the bag going off, just an intense ringing in her ears.
She recalls seeing smoke — that turned out to be talc from the driver's airbag — and realising she was still at highway speed with the overtaking lane running out ahead of her.
Somehow she managed to pull her car to the side of the highway without incident.
"Someone was definitely watching over me," she said.
Forensic crash investigator Bruce Wilson is amazed Finlayson, 27, didn't crash and said he was disturbed that there was no apparent reason for the safety systems to activate.
"People need to be concerned. You need to trust and have confidence in the safety systems in your car," Wilson said.
Nissan not interested
The former police crash investigator agreed to examine the 2007 Nissan Skyline 350GT and brief Fair Go because Nissan declined repeated invitations to look at the car.
Nissan Oceania spokesperson Emily Fadayev said: "This a 2007 built car that was privately imported into NZ in 2019 as a used import.
"As this is a used import, Nissan New Zealand have no history of the vehicle or knowledge of what happened to it over the past 15 years."
And little interest it seems in what caused the vehicle safety system to activate spontaneously.
"We recommend the customer getting in touch with the vehicle importer, who is responsible for ensuring all warranty and consumer requirements are met for the vehicles they import/sell."
Under New Zealand consumer law whoever brought the car across the border is the first port of call, but it's getting Finlayson nowhere.
Nissan built the Skyline and much later Auckland-based Autohub imported it from Japan, used. Autohub said it's not responsible as it's just delivering the car and said it has a legal opinion from its industry body which supports that view.
It said the beneficial owner is responsible — a used car dealer in Hamilton that seems to no longer be trading or answering calls.
The dealer sold the Skyline to a private owner and Finlayson didn't keep their details when she bought it off them.
All that means Finlayson has struggled for five months since the incident to find answers — with little or no help — and with more than $3000 quoted to repair the car with reconditioned safety parts.
What about insurance?
As she had been able to stay in control and pull over safely, Finlayson's car doesn't have a scratch on it.
AMI paid for towing and an initial assessment by a panel beater, but then declined her claim.
It was insured for accidental loss, however this looks a lot like a fault set off the airbags and seatbelts, which isn't covered.
Finlayson said both AMI and Waka Kotahi speculated it may have been part of an airbag recall.
Nissan has since confirmed to Fair Go that the vehicle has not been the subject of any airbag-related recalls in Japan and there's no record of any here in New Zealand either.
What the expert found
After a detailed examination of the bodywork, Wilson judged the car to be in perfect condition for its age with no signs of impact or damage, nor any modifications that would explain the incident.
Wilson has examined the data stored in the vehicle systems and opened up the car interior to look for failed components. The brain of the safety system, the airbag control module, appears to be an original part in perfect condition.
Wilson thinks a fault in the wiring is the likely cause.
"Scares the crap out of me to be honest that there could be a wiring fault in this, and it could be repaired. They could replace the airbags, put them back in, replace the seat belt tensioners, doing a fault find and it's fine, and then someone's off driving down the road again and it deploys, because there's a fault hidden somewhere."
For Finlayson, that means selling the car for parts at a large loss.
For Wilson, it raises other questions.
"Whilst this is a Nissan from 2007 and this is a certain model, these modules, this wiring system, these sensors, they're all through the Nissan fleet. It's not like they build specific items for one model of vehicle. The manufacturer should be intrigued, they should be interested in it, they should be wanting to improve and maintain their product."
Is this a one-off?
Waka Kotahi said there are 472 other 2007 Nissan Skyline 350GT models on the road in the country.
Fair Go asked Nissan how many other vehicles would use the same parts in their safety systems.
Nissan's spokesperson said: "Nissan New Zealand have never imported or sold this model in New Zealand. As such, we have no knowledge or technical data on this car available."
Finlayson's mum Barbara Cox is puzzled at where this leaves her daughter.
"I think it's insane. I can't understand why everybody's pretty much closed doors, don't want to know anything about it. You'd think that somebody would be curious as to why?"
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