[halmc]

Air Bag light has been on most of the summer. On the occasional cool morning in this past fall, the light would remain off until the external temp came up to about 70 or so. Now that the Florida winter* is here, with today's 50F temp as an example, the airbag light remains off. Even with twenty miles of driving.


I've slogged through several air bag light threads, but did not encounter one that mentioned this temp sensitivity.


Ideas, suggestions, and comments (sly and otherwise) welcomed.


*Don't panic, it will be gone by Thursday.

 

[jwight]

I'm guessing(!) that while the light may cycle when the temp changes, the two aren't related directly. If the airbag (SRS) light is on something needs to be found and fixed. Assuming you've checked the under seat connectors then it's either the impact sensors or the airbag itself. Not a trivial problem, IMHO.

 

[jzchen]

I just checked my post in Dreamcarowner's steering wheel thread. It's got to be around 100 C, I noted "> 100 C" when one needs to worry about an airbag possibly exploding. That's 212 F. Not even close.

I'm guessing some water/moisture may have gotten into one of the connectors, and caused it to partially rust, or a connector is loose as noted. Since resistance is partially dependent on temperature, something's making it sensitive to the temperatures you are noting. Got this from a Google search for "does resistance increase with temperature":

From www.reference.com

The resistance of a typical conducting wire is low when temperature is low and high when temperature is high. The increase in resistance alongside temperature is due to an increase in energy of the wire atoms, which cause them to vibrate more and impede the path of the electrons flowing through.

While this is for a wire, it can be extrapolated to include any connectors....