Good morning, SF. Who's got Subaru knowledge?

One of the ladies here at work has an '06 Legacy sedan. She absolutely loves the car, takes good care of it, and drives it nearly every day. It's got roughly 120K miles showing.

Several times now she has mentioned that her airbag light comes on while she's driving to work. When she gets in the car to go back home, it's gone out. She has had it looked at by a local small shop a few times. Each time, they say they've fixed it but a week or so later it'll happen again. (Honestly, I don't know what work the shop has done, so I realize I'm not giving a lot of information to go on.)

Yesterday she mentioned it had happened again, but pointed out that the light comes on when she's got the heat running (it was about 25 degrees here in the sticks yesterday). So now I'm curious... could something in the dash could be getting warm and expanding a little, pushing a wire harness up against something else and causing the fault? What else in the airbag system could be affected by in-cabin temperature? Or, of course, is there something else goofy going on.

Anyone had experience with intermittent airbag indicator illumination?

Thanks, all.

There probably a short or grounding problem in the CAN bus.

Our '08 Subaru had the Takada recall. Twice. She might want to put the VIN into a search.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls

Wife's 07 Outback had the same issue. Good chance it's a connection in the board that contains the lights. If she knows someone good with electronics and soldering it might be possible to locate and re solder the bad connection. Can also buy a new (used) board on ebay which I believe is what I ended up doing.

quote:

Originally posted by Puckpilot78:
Wife's 07 Outback had the same issue. Good chance it's a connection in the board that contains the lights. If she knows someone good with electronics and soldering it might be possible to locate and re solder the bad connection. Can also buy a new (used) board on ebay which I believe is what I ended up doing.

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/kjxepANo_e8" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

Tried that fix, didn't work and ended up just replacing with new on an '08 Legacy GT.

Thanks, all. I hadn't thought to look it up on the airbag recall database.

The video looks interesting too. Thank you for that, Puckpilot.

More learning to do....

Interesting timing. I have a ‘09 Legacy that is doing the same thing. A quick google search on a Subaru forum said to check underneath the seats to ensure the connections are connected properly. I have not tried that yet, been working long hours, and it just started the other day.

I’ll be following.

Good point -- I didn't think about the under-seat connections.

Adding that to the list of things to check.

Hokey, my problem is identical to yours. It is intermittent. But seems to happen most when it’s cold out, and I have the heat on. Last night on the ride home, it was warm, and I didn’t turn on the heat. No issues. This morning, it was cold out, so I warmed it up, and the light came back on.

I have some friends who are both mechanics. One suggested it could possibly be one of the front crash sensors is covered with road debris, from winter roads. It could be one of many things.

In my situation, an air bag light won’t fail my car for a state inspection, since it is not a passive restraint. And honestly, my car is a commuter car, I rarely have a passenger, and average maybe 6,000 miles a year. It’s a 2009, with 70,000 miles on it. I’ll see what happens when the weather warms up. But messing with airbags is out of my realm of expertise.

Good luck, and keep me posted.

We may have had our "Aha moment."
Miss Marie puts her lunchbag and purse on the passenger's seat for the commute. I'm wondering if the seat sensor is picking that up, seeing that the seat belt isn't fastened, and triggering the alert.

We talked about that a moment ago -- she's going to put her stuff in the back seat this afternoon and on the way to work on Monday... we'll see what we can learn.

That weight sensor turns the passenger AB on ... I've seen it myself in my truck.

or just buckle the belt.