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We just got our 2019 RDX A Spec and the passenger front seat airbag light has been staying on when my wife is sitting in the seat. Which indicates the airbag is not armed on that side. The dealer has reprogramed the computer to fix the problem. It was been working sporadically now. Luckily we have been taking photos of the switch coming on with her sitting in the seat. Even had the service manager drive the car back into the shop with my wife still seated in the car and the light on to show the technician. They don't know what is the cause. Its going back into the shop next Monday for the same issue. Anyone else had any issue with the front seat and airbag switch?
Just started to have this problem. Same as you with my wife in the passenger seat the light stays on indicating that the airbag is not providing protection in the case of an accident. We tried having her get in and out a couple of times but the light stays on. Next day no issue and the light is off when the passengers seat is occupied . We have 4,500 miles on the car and this just started the last couple of days.
My wife weighs 115 pounds so the light should be off. Its an intermittent thing and I'll have to document it with photos or video before I bring it to the service department.
Car has been in the shop for 32 days since mid Sept delivery. Vehicles computer re-flashed, Seat bottom frame ,weight sensor plate and sensor replaced, SRS computer replaced. Problem is still intermittent, but has become more frequent. Going back into shop this week. Service manager has driven it with my wife in the seat and the sensor light on, took it to service bay and showed technician who photographed light. They have been in touch with Acura/Honda trying to figure it out. I have video's of the light coming on while driving. Dealership has been great trying to figure it out. We have driven 3 2019 RDX's and a 2019 MDX while it is in the shop and none of those vehicles had an issue with the airbag light with my wife sitting in the car. I've had many new cars of various manufacturers in the last 15 years and never had any issues with airbag sensor not functioning while my wife (120 Lbs.) was in the front seat. Its pretty frustrating.
Once the light comes on it stays on until the car is actually shut off with the switch. The restart during autostop while driving as no effect and moving around in seat, bouncing on the seat wont turn the light off.
Once the light comes on it stays on until the car is actually shut off with the switch. The restart during autostop while driving as no effect and moving around in seat, bouncing on the seat wont turn the light off.
This is absolutely and utterly unacceptable. If they cannot permanently fix it, they must give you a new one. Are you in the states? You're now in lemon law territory.
This started happening today to my barely a month old RDX advance. It happens with and without a passenger. Any update on your issue Gurney? It would be very disappointing if there's no fix for it since this is the 2nd issue I already had with this car. First was a defective camera wherein they had to replace and recalibrate it.
The car is back in the shop since last Monday. Still say they are unable to duplicate problem. We are going to dealership Wednesday and my wife will be getting in and out of the car etc trying to get the RDX to replicate the issue while they have a laptop hooked up to the car and technician in the back seat monitoring the vehicle. We have done this once before without being able to replicate it. Forty days so far in the shop since Sept 15th. Been driving a 19 MDX for the last week and haven't had the same issue. Will keep you advised.
The car is back in the shop since last Monday. Still say they are unable to duplicate problem. We are going to dealership Wednesday and my wife will be getting in and out of the car etc trying to get the RDX to replicate the issue while they have a laptop hooked up to the car and technician in the back seat monitoring the vehicle. We have done this once before without being able to replicate it. Forty days so far in the shop since Sept 15th. Been driving a 19 MDX for the last week and haven't had the same issue. Will keep you advised.
I've seen this with my 108lb son on my 2019 RDX one time. It did not repeat yet.
The car is back in the shop since last Monday. Still say they are unable to duplicate problem. We are going to dealership Wednesday and my wife will be getting in and out of the car etc trying to get the RDX to replicate the issue while they have a laptop hooked up to the car and technician in the back seat monitoring the vehicle. We have done this once before without being able to replicate it. Forty days so far in the shop since Sept 15th. Been driving a 19 MDX for the last week and haven't had the same issue. Will keep you advised.
“can’t duplicate problem?” When your wife sits in the seat at the dealer, everything is OK? Or does the service guy use his own wife?
This issue has been reported on an Accord as well.
One owner's case went to arbitration and he promised to follow up with the results, but he never did which leads me to believe the solution may have involved Honda repurchasing the vehicle and requiring him to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Dropped the car off on 1/21/19, went to shop at dealers request 1/30/19 and drove car around for 30 minutes with my wife in the front seat. Couldn't duplicate issue as it is sporadic. Took car home, dealer advised they checked computers and all readings were normal. I forgot my sunglasses in the loaner car and went back today, 1/31/19 to pick them up and while on the freeway offramp the light came on again with my wife sitting in the front seat. Drove to the dealer (about 5 minutes away) pulled into service bay and showed our service writer, service manager and a technician. Got their computer hooked up and as soon as he connected it and got into the screen for that part of the car, the light shut off. Long story, but we were able to get it to do it again while it was hooked up to their computer. They got pictures, video to send to Acura. Have a 2019 RDX loaner car and so far the airbag light is working as designed. Day 41 We will see what happens.
PS:The technician had been using employees at the dealership who weighed in the 115-120lb range to try to recreate the issue.
Dropped the car off on 1/21/19, went to shop at dealers request 1/30/19 and drove car around for 30 minutes with my wife in the front seat. Couldn't duplicate issue as it is sporadic. Took car home, dealer advised they checked computers and all readings were normal. I forgot my sunglasses in the loaner car and went back today, 1/31/19 to pick them up and while on the freeway offramp the light came on again with my wife sitting in the front seat. Drove to the dealer (about 5 minutes away) pulled into service bay and showed our service writer, service manager and a technician. Got their computer hooked up and as soon as he connected it and got into the screen for that part of the car, the light shut off. Long story, but we were able to get it to do it again while it was hooked up to their computer. They got pictures, video to send to Acura. Have a 2019 RDX loaner car and so far the airbag light is working as designed. Day 41 We will see what happens.
PS:The technician had been using employees at the dealership who weighed in the 115-120lb range to try to recreate the issue.
Thanks for the update. This happened yesterday again and it’s so frustrating. Wife need to sit at the back when this happens which is definitely not ideal. That’s not why I bought this car for. I have a couple of pictures and video now. Will need to schedule an appointment with the dealership soon.
Pick the car up today, 02/01/19 was advised even though the service manager, service writer and tech saw the car with the airbag light on, Acura was advising No Problem found- working according to factory specs. They didn't have a service invoice prepared and were just going to give me the car back. I advised I wanted some paperwork. An invoice was prepared that was inaccurate indicating the light turned off when my wife shifted in the seat and the light did not come back on. No mention of the computer being hooked up and the light coming back on while it was hooked up. The service manager left the area after the light shut off the first time and was not there when the technician was looking at it when the light came on the second time. Service writer had left to go get a loaner car.
So Acura advises nothing else can be done, working as designed. No other parts to replace. Service adviser indicated that if the car was in a front end collision and the light was on the airbag would not deploy. Have hired an attorney and filed claim re Lemon Law. Disappointing.
PS : No problem with the airbag light on any of the (4 RDX's 2MDX's )loaner cars with my wife in the front seat.
Pick the car up today, 02/01/19 was advised even though the service manager, service writer and tech saw the car with the airbag light on, Acura was advising No Problem found- working according to factory specs. They didn't have a service invoice prepared and were just going to give me the car back. I advised I wanted some paperwork. An invoice was prepared that was inaccurate indicating the light turned off when my wife shifted in the seat and the light did not come back on. No mention of the computer being hooked up and the light coming back on while it was hooked up. The service manager left the area after the light shut off the first time and was not there when the technician was looking at it when the light came on the second time. Service writer had left to go get a loaner car.
So Acura advises nothing else can be done, working as designed. No other parts to replace. Service adviser indicated that if the car was in a front end collision and the light was on the airbag would not deploy. Have hired an attorney and filed claim re Lemon Law. Disappointing.
PS : No problem with the airbag light on any of the (4 RDX's 2MDX's )loaner cars with my wife in the front seat.
We are having the same problem. The airbag off light wouldn’t go off two days after we purchased the RDX. We brought the car in for service and our local dealer could never duplicate the problem. Luckily I took pictures of each event. After the dealership had the car the second time they supposedly recalibrated everything and solved the problem. They had the vehicle nine days. We picked it up and got ten miles away from the dealership, my wife went into a store to pick up something, got back in to the RDX, and the airbag off light wouldn’t go off. I took a picture of the malfunction and immediately drove back to the dealership where the service manager and service advisor saw that the light was on with my wife in the passenger seat and the vehicle running.
They immediately gave me a loaner and kept our vehicle another 16 days.
They changed all the sensors in the seat which which worked for about a week. Acura claimed that everything was working normally and that my wife probably wasn’t sitting in the seat correctly or the sensors weren’t taking into account the weight of her legs. She weighs 100lbs which is much more than the 65lb threshold listed in the owners manual.
We had financed the RDX and Acura offered to pay one months payment as a sign of good faith. Of course, they wanted me to sign a release which I refused to do.
The airbag light has continued to malfunction. I have pictures of about a dozen different times of the light staying on. We filed a lemon law suit the end of December. Honda has refused to settle and our lawyers are filing a lawsuit against Honda. They expect it to take 6-8 months if Honda doesn’t settle. I’m bringing the vehicle back to the dealership this week again as per the lawyers instructions.
I think the worst part about this situation is the uncertainty of not knowing if the passenger airbag will function correctly in the unlikely event of a serious accident.
I’ll try to keep everyone informed on how this case progresses.
I can’t feel comfortable that it is the light only. That light is there to demonstrate that the airbag will not go off, so how can they assure that even with the light on, the airbag will work as required?
Gurney,
In Arizona, you are well within your rights to file a lemon law complaint with your Better Business Bureau Auto Line and to get a replacement car once it has been out of service for 30 or more days. Sounds like you have the documentation you need, so go forth and be safe.
Our attorney heard from Acura/Honda asking us to bring the car in one more time for their final attempt to fix the problem telling me to bring the car in 2/12/19 at 10am. I arrived ten minutes early and talked to my usual service writer and he had no idea I had an appointment. Rescheduled for Thursday 2/14/19. Heard from the local dealer service writer at 7:40 am on 2/14/2019, that Acura {factory) wanted to reschedule it for 2/26/2019, 10:00am so that their factory rep technicians could be there to look at the car. Heard today from my attorney that Honda/Acura was denying the claim and not going to provide any relief for the car.
I checked in Az with the BBB auto line re the lemon and Acura/Honda do not participate in the program.
The dealership has seen one video of the car on the road with the airbag light switch on. Acura customer relations Amari, was not interested in having copies of the video when we filed our complaint. Guess we will be going to arbitration and then court.
That's super disappointing customer service. I do really like the vehicle but some obvious bugs and Acura's slow or lack of action could easily make me regret moving to this brand anytime soon.
I also filed a report with the NHTSA. If everyone who is having this problem reported it to the NHTSA maybe Acura would try a little harder to resolve this.
Picture while light on and passenger in front seat, hooked up to Acura scan tool. 54 plus pounds, seats are dual sensor so over 108lbs/ No codes
Case is going to arbitration mid April. Acura is denying claim, saying car is working as designed.
At my last meeting with an Acura Factory Rep. he assured me that even if the airbag didn't deploy in a frontal collision the seat belts have pretensioners and will lock. Ridiculous!
At my last meeting with an Acura Factory Rep. he assured me that even if the airbag didn't deploy in a frontal collision the seat belts have pretensioners and will lock. Ridiculous!
Right. The airbags, well, who knows. So, just don’t have an accident, m’kay?
This is probably too far down the road, but ask them to completely swap the seat from an RDX loaner. Did the RDX loaners have the exact same seats? The seats are not the same for all trim levels. I know you indicated they have replaced the seat bottom frame, weight sensor plate and sensor. I'm guessing there is a design error in where the weight sensor(s) is/are located in the seat and/or a low weight sensitivity issue with the sensors. Have you had someone else of similar weight outside the shop drive in the car? Can your wife get the light to go out if she bounces up or down? The reason I'm asking is we had a 2014 CRV and on long trips when my wife was sleeping with the seat reclined the airbag light would come on based on how she was sitting. This happened several times. Please keep your thread active. Keep reporting the issue to NHTSA.
I’m having the same problem as gurney. They’ve swapped out all the same components on our car as they did on gurneys. Our car is the advance. The airbag light never comes on when we are driving. What happens is it never shuts off when my wife gets in the car. The only way to get the light to go off is to stop the car and have her get out and restart the car and then get back in. The light then goes off. When the car goes into auto off at a stop light, the light does not go off. You have to physically get out of the car and get back in to get the light to go out.
this has been an intermittent problem since the day we bought the car. I probably have pictures of this happening about a dozen times and even more importantly the dealership service manager has also seen this happening.
If anyone else is having this problem please post it on this thread and report it to both Acura and the NHTSA.
The loaner cars were 19 RDX'S, and 19 MDX. Only one was an ASPEC, and the seatbelt light functioned fine in all of them. Case is going to arbitration mid April.
My wife has sat in the seat with both feet up in the seat so her entire weight is in the seat and the light stayed on. Bouncing up and down hasnt worked. Still have to stop the car, shut off ignition to reset it, its been sporatic, my wife wont ride in it now.
Last edited by gurney; 03-25-2019 at 01:22 PM.
Reason: Additional info
I have the same issue and was told by multiple Service Managers that this happens to people around 100 pounds. Even though manual says 65.
This happens at least once a week to my wife. Last time it happened, I had her get out of car, while car was still running, she sat back in and light was still on.
While the car was on, I walked around and I sat in the seat and the light went off right away. I weigh close to 200.
With the car still being on, I had my wife sit back and then the light went off after my weight triggered it.
Ours is still not working right. The light has stayed off for several minutes with nobody in the front passenger seat. Stayed on for 1 and half minutes with me in the seat and I'm 240 lbs. Acura has claimed the same that perhaps they changed the specs on the weight to perhaps 100 lbs, but didn't have any confirmation on that. If their cars are not going to allow the front passenger airbag to work properly with an adult in the front seat that is 120 lbs and under they need to state that. We have bought many new cars over the last 14 years and never had an issue with the airbags no working with my wife in the front seat. Arbitration date approaching.
Gurney and I have been having the same problem. I’m in New Jersey. Our Acura has been in the dealership four times with this same problem. Make sure you document everything and take pictures and videos. We have pictures of about a dozen times where this has happened. The service manager has also observed the airbag light not going off with my wife sitting in the passenger seat. Acura changed all the seat sensors and tried to recalibrate the sensors. Nothing has worked. They refuse to do anything else so we contacted a law firm who specializes in automobile lemon law. They said it will take about nine months to get a decision.
My wife does not want to ride in the passenger seat. She is worried that if we are in an accident the airbags won’t deploy. Unfortunately we have a new Acura that we won’t use if both of us have to go somewhere together.
11-15-2018, 01:32 PM
