how do I disable the passenger airbag?

I occasionally need to transport a pre-teen in the front passenger seat. (There are three car seats in the back for younger children.) For her to be safer, we want the airbag OFF. I tried to make sense of the owner's manual, with no luck. It claims that it auto-detects a small passenger and turns off the airbag automatically, but the indicator lights seem to work the same in all the scenarios I try, so I have no idea if it is really working.

Has anyone figured this out?

Thanks.

It doesn't look like there's a manual OFF switch. Everything is controlled by sensors.

I assume you're saying that the Passenger Airbag OFF light doesn't illuminate when your pre-teen sits there like you expect it to when you test out the system? It may be that your pre-teen is big and heavy enough to enable the passenger airbag to be on.

If you believe that your pre-teen is too small and should have triggered the Passenger Airbag OFF light but didn't, your best bet is to take your Leaf to the dealership (with the pre-teen as the test subject) and get their opinion. The manual does say that the dealership has a special tool to determine whether the airbag is truly on or off despite the condition of the indicator light.

Volusiano said:

I assume you're saying that the Passenger Airbag OFF light doesn't illuminate when your pre-teen sits there like you expect it to when you test out the system? It may be that your pre-teen is big and heavy enough to enable the passenger airbag to be on.

Click to expand...

Here's what I see:
The "OFF" light illuminates when I start up the car when the seat is empty. The "OFF" light also illuminates when I start up the car and my husband is sitting in the passenger seat. (Very unhelpful! -- I would have expected to see it in the first case (empty seat), but NOT in the second case (adult in the seat).

If the OFF-light illuminates briefly at power on, that would be part of a system-check procedure.

But, if it actually indicates that the airbag is disabled when a normal-size adult sits there, and enabled when a SMALL child sits there, it would appear to need "fixing".

Is the passenger-sensor designed to turn the airbag off if a very large adult is detected?
I doubt it.

Start by calling your dealer.
Please let us know what happens.

margie100 said:

Here's what I see: The "OFF" light illuminates when I start up the car when the seat is empty.

Click to expand...

You need to understand that the OFF light will illuminate no matter what during the first few seconds after you turn on the car due to the system check. What's important is how it behaves after the first 7 seconds or so after the system check is completed.

If the seat is empty, the OFF light will go OFF AFTER the system check if the seat is empty. Normally, this can be confusing because some people think if the seat is empty, then the airbag should be deactivated, then the OFF light should be on. However, Nissan clearly states in their manual that the OFF light will go out after system check if the seat is empty. My guess on why they chose to do this is because they're afraid even more people would be confused if Nissan leaves the OFF light on an empty passenger seat, causing people to think that there's something wrong with their passenger airbag system and take their cars into the dealer needlessly. Their logic is that if the seat is empty, there's no reason to cause false alarm and undue concern/confusion to people by leaving the OFF light on. The OFF light should only operate IF and only IF there's a passenger in the seat.

margie100 said:

The "OFF" light also illuminates when I start up the car and my husband is sitting in the passenger seat. (Very unhelpful! -- I would have expected to see it in the first case (empty seat), but NOT in the second case (adult in the seat).

Click to expand...

Again, the first few seconds of illumination is only for system start up check. It should become unilluminated in a few seconds if : 1) Nobody is in the seat, or 2) an adult is in the seat.

So far, based on your description, the behavior of your OFF light works properly as expected.

What I suggest you do is to put the actual pre-teen you're talking about in the seat, turn on the car, wait a few seconds after the system check, and see if the OFF light remains illuminated or not (after say 10 seconds).

1) If it remains illuminated after 10 seconds, it means that it detects the pre-teen properly and turns off the airbag like you want.

2) If goes unilluminated after the system check, then it means that the sensors decides that your pre-teen is big and heavy enough for the airbag to activate,

3) or it can also mean that your airbag system is not working properly.

If you're sure that your pre-teen is too small and too light and scenario 1 should have happened, then call the dealership and ask them how heavy the passenger weight needs to e before the airbag would activate. If your teen is over this weight, then you're seeing scenario 2 and the system works properly. If your teen is under this weight, then you're seeing scenario 3 and you need to bring your car in to the dealer for a check up (and preferrably your pre-teen to demonstrate the problem if possible).

Have I got this straight:

1. "Airbag disabled light on" = Airbag disabled because the sensors detect an underweight person
2. "Airbag disabled light off" = Airbag enabled because the seat is occupied by a heavy enough person OR airbag disabled because the seat is unoccupied.

Why is this less confusing than
1. "Airbag disabled light on" = Airbag disabled
2. "Airbag disabled light off" = Airbag enabled

What's confusing is sometimes people want to group together underweight with unoccupied seat into one category and deduce that airbag OFF light should illuminate in either cases, but Nissan, on the other hand, wants to treat these 2 situations (underweight & unoccupied) as 2 different categories and illuminate airbag OFF light in the earlier case but not the later case.

I can see the logic in both. But regardless of YOUR logic, it's important to read the manual to understand Nissan's logic so you know when the light is on and when it's off. That can save you a needless trip to the dealer if you interpret the operation of the light based on your logic and think something's wrong, only to take it to the dealer and they tell you nothing is wrong.

A better way of putting it is:

1) No light: Airbag is working as-expected (will deploy if someone is in the seat, will not deploy if seat is empty).
2) Light: Airbag WILL NOT work as expected (i.e., will not deploy even though someone is in the seat).

So the light is more of a "although someone is sitting in the seat, I will NOT be deploying the airbag!" notice.

Airbags in new cars are required to be weight sensitive - meaning they will deploy with less force for a lighter person than a heavier person.

In theory, it should be safe regardless of the weight of the person in the front seat as long as they are able to fit in the seat properly.

Volusiano said:

What I suggest you do is to put the actual pre-teen you're talking about in the seat, turn on the car, wait a few seconds after the system check, and see if the OFF light remains illuminated or not (after say 10 seconds).

Click to expand...

Excellent -- thanks for all the clarification, now it makes sense. I don't have the pre-teen available (carpool situation), but I put my 52-pound son in the front seat and the "airbag OFF" light stayed *on*. Yay! Tomorrow we'll test the pre-teen.

Thanks!

drees said:

Airbags in new cars are required to be weight sensitive - meaning they will deploy with less force for a lighter person than a heavier person.

In theory, it should be safe regardless of the weight of the person in the front seat as long as they are able to fit in the seat properly.

Click to expand...

This is what I understand as well. Previously, vehicles had a dealer-installed switch available to manually turn off the airbags, however now it is required to be automated based on the weight in the seat. Given the new requirements, a manual off switch is no longer allowed.

DarkStar said:

drees said:

Airbags in new cars are required to be weight sensitive - meaning they will deploy with less force for a lighter person than a heavier person.

In theory, it should be safe regardless of the weight of the person in the front seat as long as they are able to fit in the seat properly.

Click to expand...

This is what I understand as well. Previously, vehicles had a dealer-installed switch available to manually turn off the airbags, however now it is required to be automated based on the weight in the seat. Given the new requirements, a manual off switch is no longer allowed.

Click to expand...

The regulations must differ in the UK, in the glove box, there is a key switch to turn the passenger airbag off...

daleph said:

DarkStar said:

drees said:

Airbags in new cars are required to be weight sensitive - meaning they will deploy with less force for a lighter person than a heavier person.

In theory, it should be safe regardless of the weight of the person in the front seat as long as they are able to fit in the seat properly.

Click to expand...

This is what I understand as well. Previously, vehicles had a dealer-installed switch available to manually turn off the airbags, however now it is required to be automated based on the weight in the seat. Given the new requirements, a manual off switch is no longer allowed.

Click to expand...

The regulations must differ in the UK, in the glove box, there is a key switch to turn the passenger airbag off...

Click to expand...

Hmm... Since car companies don't usually use too many different wiring harnesses, maybe there is a loose end back there on our U.S. versions...

daleph said:

The regulations must differ in the UK, in the glove box, there is a key switch to turn the passenger airbag off...

Click to expand...

That is because the airbags are different too.

EU cars have airbags that deploy with less force as they are (correctly) designed to protect people wearing seatbelts.

US cars have airbags designed to protect people not wearing seatbelts, thus requiring much higher force. These airbags can be dangerous, thus the need for weight sensors.

jkirkebo said:

daleph said:

The regulations must differ in the UK, in the glove box, there is a key switch to turn the passenger airbag off...

Click to expand...

That is because the airbags are different too.

EU cars have airbags that deploy with less force as they are (correctly) designed to protect people wearing seatbelts.

US cars have airbags designed to protect people not wearing seatbelts, thus requiring much higher force. These airbags can be dangerous, thus the need for weight sensors.

Click to expand...

The UK Leaf has weight sensors too, they just added the on/off switch in the glove box to make it safe to fit a baby seat in the front