avb777

I was driving this morning on the road going about 35 miles an hour when I saw a big hole in the pavement so I made a hard right and hard left to go around it.

When I looked at my panel I saw "Passenger side air bag is activated, please see manual."

I pulled over and restarted the car. The error went away.

Does any one know what that was all about?

I am thinking maybe the car thought I was going to crash and got the air bag engaged to prepare for it or was it some kind of malfunction?

sosh

I get this message on my 05 when someone gets into the pass seat while the car is running. Also get a deactivated message when someone gets out of the pass seat while the car is running. Never did this until recently. I also get a seat belt warning light with no one in the pass seat unless I fasten the belt over an empty seat. I will have this addressed in a month or so when it goes in for a scheduled service.

Double Eagle

Just a guess. I believe the passenger seat airbag is only activated when there is "sufficient" down force on the seat to cause it to activate. If someone is sitting in it when you start the car, it will sens the weight of the person and activiate the passenger airbag when you turn the start switch.

Since you didn't have weight on the sensor when you started ithe car, it was deactivated at the initial start up. However, when you did your quick maneurvering, the sensor probably sensed enough force to cause the airbag to activate and thus give you the notice in your speedometer window. Sensor activation does not mean the airbag will go off in normal driving but merely means the passenger bag is armed and would go off if forces sense you have had an accident. The purpose of the sensor is to avoid airbag deployment should you have a very light child in the passenger seat as they have found airbag deployment can injure a child. That is why we now have warning stickers to not put infants in the front passenger seats.

The warning would go out after a shut down and restart but if passenger seat was still empty, the airbag would again be deactivated. You can probably duplicate what you experienced by putting a heavy object in the passenger seat with car running but I have not tried this as yet.

avb777

Can anyone else confirm that airbag activated message came on because of the quick manuvr and simply means that air bag is armed and ready to be deployed should collision happend?

thanks.

sosh

When the activated message appears and the air bag off light is not illuminated the airbag will deploy in an appropriate collision. It means that it is armed. It should arm with weight in the pass seat only. There have been some issues with the sensors. They are adjustable and can be callibrated. However one of the sensors is in the seat frame and in some cases with a bad sensor the seat frame must be replaced. My dealer says this is not a big deal.

avb777

but I did have a passanger in the front psngr seat!

sosh

OK, then you have a sensor problem. The dealer must either recallibrate or replace the sensor. Not a big deal.