Air Bag problems after bump

Gentwee · 30 Mar 2006 at 15:27

Going down a country lane corner yesterday my rear end sliped out and I ended up bashing the passenger side wheels against the wall. There's no major damage done (bar a slightly mangled alloy and dent in rear archway

)

My biggest problem is that my air bag light is now on. Car is a mk2 mondeo. It flashes 5 times which means:

Five flash cycle: Driver side air bag module or circuits failure.

Now when i hit the wall I think the seat belt pretentioners went off, I take it I can just change these for a working pair and all will be working again?

Freefaller · 30 Mar 2006 at 15:31

Nice thread title....

I'd get it checked out by a specialist or approved garage - it's not the sort of thing you want to take to chance.

Firestar_3x · 30 Mar 2006 at 15:34

As Freefaller has pointed out its a critical system that needs to work right, if you want a quick look yourself, disconnect your battery, let it discharge for 10 mins then check the connections under the passangers seat, might have come loose.

Mark

ElRazur · 30 Mar 2006 at 15:35

Like freefaller said you dont wanna leave it to chance, my friend once did on a car and it went off without warning, luckily the car was parked and no one was in there.

[TW]Fox · 30 Mar 2006 at 15:53

You must have given it a proper whack to set the pretensioners off :eek:

Gentwee · 30 Mar 2006 at 16:26

Was doing ~25 so was a far old wack, quite surprising how little damage there is really.

Firestar_3x : I've had them come apart before so they are tied together so can't come apart.

There's no damage to the actual system unless it's been there fsince before I had the car. I had a knock and they did their job so just need to be renewed. Thats my thinking anyway.

needmorespeed · 30 Mar 2006 at 17:17

surely if the pretensioners went off the air bags should have gone aswell

Oracle · 30 Mar 2006 at 17:30

No because airbags are activated by two systems which have to be activated together.

No frontal impact, so why render the car useless and undrivable!?

If you dont wear a seat belt and you have a head on, your airbag won't come out, so both systems have to be triggered for the bag to deploy

In addition, you dont have to wait 10 minutes for anything to 'discharge'

It never discharges, just disconnect the battery and check the wiring under the seat, but it still wont cure the fault code, so you are best just to get it checked by someone with Diag. equipment.

MrMoon · 30 Mar 2006 at 17:48

never mess with air bags or seatbelt pretentioners, my mate did when his airbag light was on and it activated all the airbags including the curtains rendering his car undrivable, the guy at the ford garage told him he would have been better off and cheaper just to bring it to ford and let them fix it, he ended up buying new airbag bits for most of his car cos he triggered them all by messing with the wiring to make the light go off