I felt the same way but the car held up well. It was doubly frustrating because I spent 500 bucks extra for the rear side bags, which were an option at the time. Obviously could have saved the money but who could have known?

If you look at the interior picture, the leather cover for the airbag is pushed in so far that you can actually see the unexploded airbag sticking out into the passenger space.

Still, I figured the engineers were lying in order to avoid liability, and that there was a malfunction of some sort. I went ahead and paid an extra 500 bucks again when I ordered the rear side bags on my new X back in 2001 thinking -- who could be that unlucky twice?