My Mirage needs a new passenger airbag sensor. It's covered under warranty, just barely (59K miles). It's $1200 and the guy told me my airbags won't deploy until I get it replaced (next week). I have a couple questions:

One is that what's the point of having an airbag if it's so easily disabled? It seems like it should work the other way. The default setting for the airbag should be ON. A non functioning sensor shouldn't turn it off. I'd rather have an airbag stuck "ON" if there's a glitch than stuck "OFF".

Two, if your car was out of warranty what would you do? Pay $1200 to fix it? Leave it unfixed? Get a new car? It might be worth getting a new car than paying $1200 to fix an old car. If it was an engine replacement that would be different because now you have a new engine that will last a long time. But replacing a sensor means you still have an old engine and an old transmission.