My airbag light goes on when someone sits in the drivers side rear seat

[Charlescrs6]

Anyone know why? It will go on and off every 10-15 minutes.

Also, 5 people in my car tonight= no rear fender liner anymore.

[angep18t]

Anyone know why? It will go on and off every 10-15 minutes.

Also, 5 people in my car tonight= no rear fender liner anymore.

Smart idea, and thats because I wasn't there, duh.

[justin]

I'll have to look at my spare seats but I think there are two connectors underneath the bench. Maybe one of them is loose.

[AndyGs4]

There is a sensor in the seatbelt latch (and under the seat iirc) that tells the computer if there are rear passengers, and if they are buckled in. It does this because if there are rear passengers that are not buckled up, it changes the way airbags get deployed; i.e. some won't fire since they can harm passengers who are not strapped to the seat.

To make a short story long, one of the sensors is broken/intermittant. I would check the seatbelt latches.

I hear ya on fender liners; I need to raise mine about 0.25" because I lost my fender liners while empty.

[Charlescrs6]

Thanks for the replies guys! I'll have to check it out.

My car is really not even low. I'm at about 25" all around IIRC. Guess an extra 785lbs+me (185) will do it haha.

[dmaxben]

Did you figure anything out about this?? I noticed I had this problem too. For the first couple months of owning the car I never had anyone sit in the back, but for the first time one of my friends was sitting back there and I noticed the airbag light was on. But after driving for a little while the light randomly went off?

Ben

[Charlescrs6]

^Haven't... I should though. I really almost never have people in the back seat. Maybe once a week, if that. Usually that person sits on the passenger side rear seat too since I put my seat so far back, so I never really see the warning.

[dmaxben]

I havent checked the codes but I would think something would be stored in the airbag module's DTC history, even though the DTC is no longer 'current/pending'.

Im pretty sure the only thing the "seatbelt buckled yes/no" sensor is for is to tell the airbag control module whether or not to fire the rear pretensioners in a crash. Its not really to control/modify airbag deployment. However the FRONT seatbelt buckled status can infact modify the airbag modules decision of whether or not to fire the airbags, or determine whether to fire only the first stage or second stage (B7 only, B6's are single-stage systems).

The B6/B7's have not only front pyrotechnic pretensioners, but they also have rear pretensioners, which I thought was really cool. Not many cars have them in the rear, its usually a front-belts-only thing. Another example/reason of how incredibly safe our cars are.

Basically, if no one is sitting in the rear there is no reason to fire the rear pretensioners, (therefor reducing repair costs if the car is in an accident, as pretensioners, like airbags, are a one-time-use thing) thus the "seatbelt buckled yes/no" sensors for the rear seatbelts...

Ben