Airbag light came on, stayed on, then turned off?

[Pigwich]

So the other day, when I was merging onto the 110 in crazy traffic, I *may* have laid a tiny patch of rubber, which sometimes happens, right? But then the airbag light came on, and then the speedometer screen said airbag malfunction, lots of chiming, and general nervous-making. I pulled into the donut shop, plugged in the code reader, and it read nothing. So I went in, got a box of donuts for the office, and got back in the car, and the light was off, and it was as if nothing happened. I did make a service appointment just in case, but so far it hasn't complained and all is well with the world.

I DID have a bag in the passenger's seat, but I do this frequently and it's never been an issue.

Solar flare? gremlins? seatbelt sensor? butt-sensor? There are lots of theories, but I can't reproduce the error.

Anybody have any ideas?

 

[SeanNelson]

I DID have a bag in the passenger's seat, but I do this frequently and it's never been an issue.

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary I would put this down to the passenger seat occupancy sensor. Those sensors are supposed to detect if there's an occupant of at least a certain weight and arm the airbag for deployment. This is to protect adults during a crash while avoiding the injuries that an airbag can inflict on small children.

If the bag on your passenger seat is near the threshold weight I can imagine the detection circuit getting some sort of intermittent indication, especially when driving on an uneven road that jostles the bag around. And it's not hard for me to imagine that that kind of intermittent indication might be interpreted as a sensor malfunction.

This is all just a guess on my part, but until there's more evidence it's what I'd go with.

 

[Pigwich]

Thanks for the feedback. So far there's been no evidence AT ALL. Of any kind. The car has been completely silent, which I'm happy about. I'm glad it's not one of those stupid things that stays tripped, necessitating a trip to the dealer. Time will tell I guess. Sure would be nice if the error message was a little more detailed though.