The ONLY sure way to check if the airbags are intact is by having the steering wheel airbag cover opened manually by Honda Center. They will turn off the airbags using their scanner and unplug the car's battery. After that, there are 2 screws at the back of the steering wheel which are removed and the airbag cover comes off. The technician can even confirm if the airbags had been changed previously. The problem is that most sellers won't agree to having this done because it takes about an hour or so. I have personally seen cars at Honda Center Rawalpindi being checked like this. Both my 9th Gen and 8th Gen were inspected by Honda Center using their scanner and both were untouched Alhamdulliah.
There is a simpler way as well; most dealers are so clever that they buy such scanners which completely remove the airbag check system from the car using a scanner which means that even if there is no visible damage or if the deployed airbags are put back into their covers, the car won't even know that it has the airbag option. The airbag option is simply removed from the data card; it hardly takes 2 minutes to do so.
To check if you're being scammed like this, simply check if the scanner that Honda center uses doesn't say that there are no airbags in the car or it doesn't even display the option.
One more scam that dealers often do is that they place a 2 to 3 ohm resistor between the wires for the airbag which makes the car think it has airbags, but there's only a small resistor there.
When a car's airbags are deployed, the seat belt modules require replacing. If there are not replaced when the airbag was deployed, the car's seatbelts will not stiffen on hard braking. To check this, simply thrust your body towards the steering wheel with the seat belt fastened over your chest; it will immediately lock up to hold you in place. If it doesn't lock up, the airbags and seat belts are both damaged.
