Couple waits for airbag repair costs after crash leaves Toyota without exterior damage

After almost a year, acouple near North Battleford, Sask.,wants to know why Toyota Canada and SGI cannot agree on who should pay to repair their SUV.

Barb MacNaughton was driving their 2005 Toyota Sequoia along Highway 16 near Radisson, Sask on Jan. 27.Snow was melting, and as she tried to pass a semi-trailer, she lost control of her vehicle.

"I know that I hit the ditch at a huge speed and I spun around and I thought I was gonna tip," said MacNaughton. "There was a really big bang and I could smell it and my side airbags were right there, within a second."

Witnesses to the crash pulled her out of the vehicle, eventually towing itfrom slushy snow in the ditch,

"They had to dig the side of my vehicle out to get any chain or anything on it because I really wallopped the ditch good."

Car initially deemed a write-off

The impact of hitting the airbags gave MacNaughtona concussion and whiplash. SGI agreed to pay for her physiotherapy sessions all summer, and took six demerit points from her driver's licence.

MacNaughton's husband, Neil, said technicians initially estimated damage to the interior of the SUV would cost $9,000 to repair. He said he signed papers agreeing to write off the vehicle, and saw it towed to a local salvage yard.

By Feb. 19, he received aletter signed by Randy Daum, the manager of North Battleford's SGI Claims Centre, noting SGI would not pay for any repairs, as"damages to your vehicle were the result of a mechanical breakdown."

"What SGI told me was that if I had one dent the size of my thumb in the side of our vehicle, we would have had insurance. They said one dent. That's all we needed," Neil MacNaughton said."I didn't blurt it out loud but if I'd have booted the side of my car after, done. Our vehicle would have been written off."

Officials at SGI told CBC that in most cases, when thereis no exterior damage to a vehicle after a driving incident, damage coverage is denied.

"In situations where damage is caused to the interior of a vehicle due to malfunctioning airbags, it would not be covered by insurance because it is considered a mechanical failure," SGI officials noted in an e-mail.

"They basically told us to go away," said Neil.

Toyota says no mechanical failure occurred

For months, the car sat at North Battleford's Toyota dealership while technicians analyzed what happened during the crash.

A letter to Barb MacNaughtondated July 14, 2016, confirmed there was no exterior collision damage, but data from the car's event data recorder showed "roll angle sensors detected the onset of a rollover and the threshold for deployment was met."

Neil said he was told technicians would plug a device into the SUV'son-board computer to scan for codes which would indicate the G-force from the incident.

"SGI told me they plugged into it but they wouldn't tell me what it was," he said. "Even our local dealership could not plug into it.Someone from Toyota Canada had to come from Toronto, fly down to North Battleford, plug into it and take a reading, if the airbags deployed too soon."

"The side curtain airbags in the customer's vehicle deployed as intended," said Michael Bouliane, Toyota Canada's manager of corporate communications. "This should now be a discussion between the customer and their insurer."