Air Bag On-off Switch problems of the 2017 Subaru Forester

While traveling at any speed, the passenger air bag will switch to off. An error message will appear indicating that the srs airbag system needs checked. Issues appears to be located with the occupant detection system in the passenger seat.

Passenger air bag switches to "off" despite passenger sitting in seat. Subaru dealership diagnosed faulty sensor. Air bag light switches to "off" at random times even when passenger is seated in seat. On the dashboard, next to the odometer, a red square with a lower case "I" appeared and below to the left the red airbag indicator lit. The system says to check srs airbag and bring to dealership. This often occurs when car is stopped/parked and passenger gets out while car is still running. Dealership agreed to replacing sensor but the part has been unavailable for 6 months now. We keep being told "it's on order, can't say when it will arrive. " vehicle is unsafe to drive with a passenger as a result. . Read more...

My 2017 Forester began having the passenger airbag light switch off when there was a passenger in the seat and the vehicle was in motion. On the dashboard, next to the odometer, a red square with a lower case "I" appeared and below to the left the red airbag indicator lit. Also on the upper dash, the passenger airbag on light switched to off. In order to rectify this, I had to pull over, shut off the engine and restart it. This happened several various times during normal city street driving. Returning from a 1200 mile trip recently, it occurred near the end of my trip about every 40 miles. Very distressing! took to dealer and they said no codes were in the computer showing any problems. Said the seat might have had something spilled on it which never happened! they said that the red square with the white "I" in it meant the eyesight was malfunctioning which was ridiculous!! why would the airbag light make the eyesight malfunction? I have never had a problem with the eyesight and I use it all the time. When I looked online, I discovered that there were many people who had the exact same problem with exact same symptoms!! surprised that Subaru has not had a recall for this. Are they waiting until someone dies in an accident before they do anything? I recently had a person turn in front of my my 2015 Forester and all the airbags deployed reducing injuries. If my 2017 Forester airbags are not working in an accident, my passenger could be severely injured and Subaru would be responsible!! they need to fix this problem now!!!.

Passenger air bag switches to "off" despite passenger sitting in seat. Subaru dealership diagnosed faulty sensor, suspected cause being seat covers. Removed seat cover, sensor is still faulty. Air bag light switches to "off" at random times even when passenger is seated in seat. Dealership agreed to replacing sensor but the part has been unavailable since sept. 2018 (6 months now). We keep being told "it's on order, can't say when it will arrive. " vehicle is unsafe to drive as a result.

Passenger airbag sensor malfunction of some sort causes airbag system to be switched to "off" even when a passenger is in the vehicle. I had taken it to the dealer the first time, and the code was "reset" in the memory and I was instructed to bring the vehicle back if it happened again. It did happen again, and this time they said "the code wasn't in the memory" and that "when it happens, bring the car right in while the light is still on. " that however, is impossible as it was random and had been happening on a long drive. They kept the car overnight in this case, and tried to reproduce the problem. I myself drove around with the weights on the seat and seatbelt engaged for about 1 month in an attempt to reproduce the problem to no avail. This has not recurred since the 2nd instance described above, however I have experienced what seems to be an extremely sensitive sensor of which even the weight of a cell phone on the passenger seat could set off the occupancy detection system. The first occasion happened at about 30,000 miles, with the 2nd happening at about 35,000 miles. It has not recurred over the course of 10,000 miles since then. The news of the recent NHTSA investigation into this exact issue prompted me to submit my own complaint in an effort to be on record.