I have only one problem with my RL that I know of and that is an intermittent passenger air bag off message. It happened twice yesterday. I was by myself and a tone sounds and a message appears in the Driver Infomation area that my passenger air bag is off and in addition I get an AccuraLink message saying that someone changed their seating position and should readjust it. I got a feeling I have a loose connector in the seat area but more important I hope that the airbag control resets when the vehicle is turned on the next time so that my passenger is protected.

Anybody else have this?

Frank

 

Did you have anything sitting in the passenger seat at the time? I have heard of briefcases and bags triggering the sensor and causing the airbag to disable itself.

 

Absolutely nothing was in the passenger seat and I have also heard of small objects causing the problem but not this time. One thing we did have happen before was on a long trip my wife kind of raised herself a little bit to move around on the seat and the same message appeared. I was concerned that the airbag was off permanently until you see a dealer because that is what the AccuraLink message implied. I would hope that when weight of a person is reapplied to the seat that the air bag comes back on. If not I would expect this to be a serious liability issue with Acura. I guess I would much prefer a switch such as on the Toyota Tacoma pickups that let you disable/enable the bag yourself. Course they probably got sued over that one too...

 

It would be really nice to know EXACTLY how the airbag controls are supposed to work. Maybe someday we will see a service manual that will explain the operation.

 

There are 2 sensors located in the seat, one for the side airbag and another for the front airbag. The front airbag becomes deactivated when a person or object less than 65 pounds is in the front seat. The switch is automated for liability reasons. the side airbag sensor deactivates the airbag in the side of the passenger seat when someone is positioned in a way that it would be unsafe for deployment. I would check with service as it sounds like a connection issue. The same system is in the TL and MDX and has proven very reliable.

 

Thanks for the responses. I guess I need to see the dealer. I have checked all the connections under the seat but there may be more that I didn't see and also perhaps the control module is faulty. Gosh, I hate to have my car screwed with....

Frank

 

Probably something triggering the sensor.

It is supposed to disable the airbag when a child is in the passenger seat.