Airbag light on '04 - 3 sedan 2.3L

[eaybulut]

Hello fellow TM3'ers..

I'm having an awkward situation. When someone sits on the passenger seat, the air bag light will come on my dashboard (not the passenger air bag off light). I know that the sensor turns the airbag on and off based on the amount of weight it detects on the seat. when I put something light -- say 5 to 10 pounds on the seat, the "passenger side air bag off" light comes on -- the one near the lighter tray. When there is no one sitting in the seat or if nothing is placed on the seat .. no light near the lighter tray and no light on the dashboard. But as soon as someone sits in the passenger seat, the light comes on and it will not go off until I turn off the car and come back to it a few hours later. This baffles me like crazy... why it would even turn off by itself.. I'm inclined to think its the actual sensor itself. I'm going to plug it into an OBDII reader at the first chance I get.. but I just wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts? Anyone experience this before?

[McGuyver_3]

you will not be able to retrieve codes with a normal obd scanner. You will need one capable of reading air bag codes. Your problem to me sounds like an issue with the sensor in the seat. They are made of flexible material and clearly over time with large amounts of use they do wear out. I have seen this before at work and we had a procedure for this where we were supposed to add a felt tape on one side to releieve pressure on the matt however every one I did needed a replacement matt. If you scan the car and find out it is the matt and want to change the matt yourself that is ok however I do not know how sophisticated the Mazdas are but the cars I work on need to enable the the matt. The only way to do this is through the factory scan tool. Good luck

[eaybulut]

Sorry for the late reply. It turned out to be a cabling issue. I realized it the same day. I pulled the seat forward, then pulled it back... pressed against the cables, and voila.. somehow, no light on the dashboard. The sensor works perfectly fine, going on/off based on the amount of weight in the seat and whether the seatbelt is plugged in. Never got around to trying to read it with the scanner since the light went off.


you will not be able to retrieve codes with a normal obd scanner. You will need one capable of reading air bag codes. Your problem to me sounds like an issue with the sensor in the seat. They are made of flexible material and clearly over time with large amounts of use they do wear out. I have seen this before at work and we had a procedure for this where we were supposed to add a felt tape on one side to releieve pressure on the matt however every one I did needed a replacement matt. If you scan the car and find out it is the matt and want to change the matt yourself that is ok however I do not know how sophisticated the Mazdas are but the cars I work on need to enable the the matt. The only way to do this is through the factory scan tool. Good luck

[Airman Jack]

I had a similar issue recently with my car as well, except that the airbag light stayed lit constantly. My local shop ran a code, said that it was showing 'infinite resistance' (broken wire) but after unplugging the harness and plugging it back in, the light went away and has been gone for months. I think the connections just get loose over time and need to be reseated.

[McGuyver_3]

They are not supposed to be unplugged every now and then. At work I have seen airbag units simply change resistance and cause the light to come on. Clearing the code is a temp fix and the code does come back. At least the cars I work on. Sometimes which is more rare of a case the airbag control module itself goes bad.