Removed seat from car-Airbag sensor? (1 Viewer)

[Jay H]

In order to do some wiring to my amp/speakers in my car (a Toyo MR2 Spyder) I removed the driver seat, as well as a ton of other panels and molding pieces, I know I had to remove a connector from the underside of the seat before I took the seat out and I'm told this is for the airbag sensor? Is this some kind of weight sensor to know whether to deploy the airbag if somebody is sitting? My seat is not powered or heated so there is no other reason for a wire to go to the seat itself.

Jay

 

[Philip_G]

does the car have side impact bags? it could be for that. Did the seatbelt clip come out with the seat? it's probably a wire to the seatbelt latch for the idiot light on the dash.
I would assume a weight switch wouldn't be needed for the driver's seat. 99.99999999% of all front impact accidents have a driver in the car

 

[Bill MacAdoo]

I would have guessed it's the seatbelt sensor...

 

[Dan Joy]

Jay,
I don't know about your Toyota specifically, but my 2004 Toyota Sienna DOES have a seat occupent weight sensor to set off the seatbelt light. Hope this helps.

 

[Mike Lenthol]

Woa! I didn't even notice that the seat-belt light doesn't come on when nobody is there! Sensing weight is pretty high-tech. Is that a legal requirement to have those buckle-up lights?

 

[Philip_G]

In the driver, or passenger seat?

 

[Ted Lee]

my 99 4runner also has a sensor of some sort for the passenger seat belt.

if someone sits on it, but doesn't buckle up, the light flashes. but, if there is no passenger, it stays unlit. pretty cool.

in any case, i'm assuming you hooked that connection back up ... right? whatever it is ... it's there for a reason.

 

[Seth_L]

Don't remove a seat from a car that has an airbag in the seat without unplugging the battery first and waiting 15 minutes for the airbag circuitry to discharge.

Also, it's best to not put the car in the run position with the battery reconnected with the seats still out of the car. You'll then have to get your dealer to reset the error lights (for $$$).

 

[Bryan X]

A weight sensor is used in the driver's seat to determine the force needed during deployment of the airbag. The airbag will deploy with lesser force if a smaller driver is in the seat, thereby lessening the potential of injury from the airbag.

 

[ShawnWingate]

you normally don't have to go to the dealer to reset the light just diconnect the battery for about 15 seconds should clear any error codes

 

[Philip_G]

hasn't worked in the past for me with airbag codes/

 

[Jay H]

Thanks folks, the first thing I did was disconnect the battery, long before I took the seat out. I was told that before and since I was installing an amp and speakers, I disconnected the battery before.

I haven't removed the passenger seat, don't think I need to but removing the driver seat allowed me to stick my head under the footwell for me to run the patch cables to my head unit under the footwell carpet and molding. There is no side impact bag in the MR2.

Would it be OK once I hook all my wiring up to simply turn the car's ignition to the ACC (without putting the seat back in) so I can at least turn on the radio to see if it's working?

The only condition whereas the driver side airbag should NOT go off is if the car is idling and somebody happens to hit the car from the front, triggering the airbag sensor, but yeah, it should be very very rare.

Jay

 

[Seth_L]

Am airbag is a safety device and you shouldn't be able to reset it that way. I've never seen a car that let you reset an airbag safety light.

 

[Jay H]

Whew, I finished snaking speaker wire to my door and wired up my crossover and stuff. Shoot, I do not understand how the pros do this in half a day or so! I have spent a full 2 days working on it and I'm out of speaker wire now, need to get more to run from my amp to the passenger door. But fortunately, all the experimentating has been done on the driver door so the passenger door should be easy once I get the speaker wire.

Speaking of reset lights, my other car, an E36 BMW for the longest time would say "Oil change" and "inspection" since I did my own oil changes. I used to go to the dealer and tell them to reset the light for me until one day the dealership said they no longer would do this. So I have seen those $60 reset light things in the back of the magazines and stuff, but I found an article online which tells you exactly how to reset them with a simple connector wire, a resistor, and a diagram of which pins to short out to reset the lights!

Jay