Think my passenger airbag is screwed up

is the seat too far forward. There is a sensor on the guide rails.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brick @ Jan 20 2007, 09:34 PM) [snapback]378466[/snapback]</div>

As long as it's going back to the shop, does the seat belt alarm work? I tell my unbuckled passengers that it is the passenger ejector seat arming. I put my laptop on the seat and it triggered the alarm so now I don't put stuff on the seat.

 

This happened on my 2007 the first time my daughter rode with me. (she's an adult) When we noticed it, I pulled over to the side, stopped the car. She got out, got back in & everything was fine. Definitely something I'll mention when I go in for service & something I'll watch for - I don't often have a passenger, but this was the first time the sensor didn't seem to notice that a passenger was on board.

 

Make sure nothing is under the passenger's seat (except the JBL stereo). If you stuff a purse under there, it will interfere with the weight sensor.

Tom

 

Picked up my 07 about 2.5 weeks ago. No real problems. But this morning, after the temperature dropped from 80 yesterday to 35 this morning, my wife gets in the passenger seat and gets the "airbag off" light. Actually, it moves between on and off as I drive--go over bumps, turn the corner, etc. and that seems to trigger it to switch.

Put me in the pass. seat, airbag on all the time. My dad, airbag on all the time.

Then later in the day my wife gets in with her big down coat, and airbag on all the time.

It's going in tomorrow afternoon for them to look at this. The owner's manual is quite clear on this being a malfunction; in general, we should NEVER see the "off" light on the passenger airbag, even when no one is sitting there.

I suspect a calibration issue.

And no, there's nothing under the seat at all.

And naturally, since the temperature dropped so dramatically, the tire pressure light went on, too. What a nanny car. Yeah, it was 80 degrees the last time I drove it, then I parked it overnight and the next time I got in it was 35 degrees. Yeah, that's going to create some pressure differential. Can't the car make an evaluation based on ambient temperatures? Must it be so absolute?

And there's no way to do a simple reset in this situation; the only cure is "put more air in the tire". Which tire? I can put them all back to factory spec, but that won't fix the problem or the light. The same volume of air at 80 is higher pressure than at 35, and the stupid sensor knows only "hey, I saw a big drop in pressure between the last time I looked and now". I know of no real way to fix this problem, other than to let it get back up to 80 degrees with the same volume of air inside the tires.

 

If you are sure you have adequate tire pressure, press the TPMS reset button under the steering wheel. It's right next to the SKS button if you have SKS.

 

Mine, too. 2.5 weeks old Prius, out of the blue, my wife--yeah, slender, but she's not child-size--can't make the airbag "ON" light illuminate with any confidence. It switches between off and on as I drive.

Me, it lights up no problem. My dad, no problem.

The dealer will fix it tomorrow. But all these doodads are just failure points that in the end will make every car not very environmentally friendly--because we'll be driving them many fewer miles than we otherwise could have, due to doodad failures.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(adam1991 @ Apr 4 2007, 08:05 PM) [snapback]417910[/snapback]</div>

It sounds like the Prius is your first car. There are millions of cars on the road without airbags. There are probably still some on the road without seat belts. Have you ever used duct (or duck) tape for an automotive repair? I wouldn't worry about taking a car out of service for a doodad failure. However, if the doodad, thingamajig, doohickey, and whatchamacallit fail you might be in serious trouble.

 

This Prius is far, far from my first car.

But let's face it: the "ooo, I have to have a new car every three years" mentality, combined with the gaggle of doodad failure points, means cars aren't being driven as long as they could be. The public is demanding more resources to build new cars, and the old cars have to be disposed of.

 

Do you have aftermarket leather? The shop could have moved the sensor or put it back in wrong.

Nate

 

Nope. My interior, from the seats/center console backward, is bone stock.

 

my 07 prius will display the red airbag lite at all times for days, then it will go out after the self check and work well for a week or so then it's lite on all the time again. any help will be appriciated! larry

 

Only on a seat belt buckle.

(It actually worked quite well, replacing crumbled plastic to hold the metal load-carrying bar in position until a safety recall was issued a couple years later.)

 

If it's easily repro and you're under 60K miles, take it in for repair. Toyota.com : Vehicles : Prius : Frequently Asked Questions says the warranty on airbags is 5 years/60K miles.

(I don't have my 2nd gen Prius warranty booklet in front of me to confirm.)

 

When mine did that, my SRS light was on when the airbag off light was on. Were you bumped in the rear? Mine did it after I got bumped in the rear end. It takes about a minute for them to put it on the computer and reset it. They intended to chare the flat rate of 1 hours labor to do, but when I got it back in 10 minutes I guess they felt bad about trying to charge me for it and said to just forget it, no charge. That is all they did to mine. No other engine computer will reset it except the one Toyota has. You can hook it to any code reader and it will tell you what the code is but only Toyota's will reset it. Oh yeah... when this happens, my dealer said that NONE of your airbags are working. That is a dangerous situation.