I understand how you feel, and if thats what you want I wont post any more about this, but personally I see this has a design flaw, cup holders over the airbag computer LOL, and I also think its wrong that they make it hard for you to fix or work on your own vehicle.

 

I'm not saying "don't post", but I am saying to you and anyone else reading the thread, airbags are nothing to mess with unless you're certain beyond any doubts....that you know exactly what you're doing.

Could that module have been mounted somewhere less likely to become a victim of a spilled Big Gulp®, well yes. But your beef is with GM engineers back in 2003-2005 when the HHR's were in the prototype phase, too late to fix it now.

And frankly, we've seen some pretty dumb stuff done over the years by folks who "knew what they were doing", like flipping the cables on their batteries and roasting electrical components.

So work with care, and in my experience, once the connections on a circuit board begin corroding...it's "game over". You can clean off the visible corrosion, but the damage has been done and the traces on the board will just continue corroding over time.

Replacing that module with a "known good" one is the way to go in my book, and if you have to fork some cash out to your GM dealer for a Technician's time with a Tech II, it's money well spent.

 

What a memory!

Actually the box is very well sealed. I doubt that liquid got inside the box itself, but liquid on the connector can cause all kinds of trouble on "computer" electronics.

The corrosion that Fords experience is from standing water under the driver seat, caused from being "work" trucks; water on boots etc. Sometimes an inch or 2 deep. If they put it under the passenger seat there would have been a smaller problem. One of those hindsight things.

I spent many hours researching before I even thought about ordering parts. In my case I needed both side curtain bags, a rollover sensor, an SDM, both front seat belts & trim. The insurance company handed me a parts list and a check, I ended up making about $1000 by doing the labor myself.

If the website I looked at is correct, new SDMs are not available. I guess they figure there will be no more deployments, or GM has started to allow their techs to repair the SDM. I don't know, I do know that the techs I have run into can only use a Tech2 to read codes. And, Tech2 is no longer the standard scantool.