Air Bag Light On problems of the 2011 Subaru Outback

The passenger seat airbag indicator, with an adult sitting in the seat, randomly shows the airbag on/off. There is no consistency to whether the airbag will show as functioning, which makes the system non-functioning by any measure. This is a key safety feature that Subaru advertises and sells vehicles by and it simply does not function. Subaru has not acknowledged that there is an issue and their service department claims that they cannot find and error code indicating there is an issue. The implication being that I am making up the issue. This seems to be a similar issue to what was outlined in the 2012 Subaru impreza airbag sensor recall. Both cases involve the passenger airbag sensor failing with an adult sitting in the seat. If you never know if the airbag is going to work, it is a failure of the system. This isn't a problem that is going to be recognized or fixed without a mandatory recall or a lawsuit.

The airbag indicator for the passenger will not remain on, even though the passenger meets the required weight.

First I will say I am an adult female weighing 120 lbs, sufficient weight to activate airbags. We just purchased this car and went for long trip and I noticed my air bag light was off. I tried to adjust positions and sometimes I could get it to come back on, only to find a few minutes later that is off again, this process was repeated the whole 7 hour trip. We were traveling on snow covered roads so this was very upsetting to not have the air bags working. This is a serious problems that needs to be fixed. What good are safety features in a car if they do not work properly.

We have a Subaru Outback that we purchased in may 2011. In January 2013 the airbag indicator began to turn off randomly while I was seated in the front passenger seat. It happens intermittently and without any change in behavior or movement on my part we have brought the car to the dealer and they say there is not a problem with the system. I have called the Subaru company and they say the system is operating as designed and since the dealer cannot find the problem there is none. The company also state there have been complaints by other people my weight. (117 lbs. ) they also state that the airbag will not inflate if the indicator for the airbag is off. I have expressed my fear of not having an airbag in case of an accident to no avail. I feel that this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed .

There seems to be a problem with the front passenger air bag activation sensor. My wife, who weighs approx. 125 lbs, often sits in that seat. The air bag sensor light might go on, or it might not. Sometimes she can shift her weight and have it come on. Other times it doesn't matter what she does, it will not go on. We can be riding along with the air bag light on and all of a sudden, for no reason, it will go off. Then, inexplicably, it might, or might not, come back on. I brought the car to a local Subaru dealer who informed me that this is the way the air bag system is made and that there is nothing they can do about it. They said that it is against federal law for them to make any adjustments and that I should just make sure my wife wears her seat belt when we're driving. This is a major irritant, since neither of us can be sure if the passenger air bag will actually deploy should we be in an accident. It seems like something should be done about this, especially now that I've searched this site and found that I am not the only one to experience this problem with the passenger air bag sensor. I joke with my wife that we might need to fatten her up to save her life, but for some reason she just doesn't think it's funny. Maybe you folks can look into the problem and do something about it.

Passenger airbag light goes on and off randomly when I am sitting in the passenger seat. I am 5'3 110lbs. The sensors were recaliberated when I took it to the dealer the first time. The problem continued. Even if you sit in one spot and not move the sensor will turn on and off randomly. The dealership still doesn't know how to fix the problem. I was told the sensors have trouble sensing 70-90lbs of weight. I am over that therefore there should be no issue. I now own a car that the airbag might be on or off if I was ever in a collision. This is a huge safety concern!.

The passenger side front air bag indicator randomly showed the status 'on' or 'off' when the seat was occupied by an adult passenger. No pattern could be identified for the indication although we tried every perturbation of sitting, fastening seat belt, closing door, starting engine, etc. The vehicle was returned to the dealer for repair. The passenger seat sensor(s) was replaced as defective, now the indicator never indicates 'on', always 'off' regardless of actions as above. The vehicle was returned a second time, this time it was determined that the sensor(s) were being inhibited because of seat covers distributing the weight in such a way as to 'fool' the sensors. It took a 180 lb. Person to activate the sensor, [a 170 lb. Person did not] with the seat covers on, the sensors appeared to operate correctly without the seat covers. This raises the question of weight distribution, are large buttocks required given that there are multiple weight sensors in the seat, how about a small framed 120 lb adult. The answer is clear, the passenger air bag should always be on unless manually turned off by the user. Subaru must provide a programming option to the owner to default the airbag status to always 'on'. My Toyota and Honda both provides a key lock option to disable the unit, default is, and should be required, to be 'on'. This is a safety issue, and Subaru is opening themselves to class actions, and heaven forbid the first accident when the unit fails to deploy because it was not armed because of quirky weight distribution requirements. I believe that a preventive recall should be ordered if Subaru does not unilaterally provide an always 'on' default option for the vehicle.

The contact owns a 2011 Subaru Outback. While driving approximately 65 mph, the front passenger air bag off indicator would illuminate intermittently whenever the front passenger seat occupants weight was 100 pounds. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer four different times for the identical failure; however there was not a remedy for the repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the problem. The approximate failure mileage was 5,000. The VIN was unavailable.

Sometimes the right front airbag indicator light is "off" despite a full-sized adult sitting in that seat.

The contact owns a 2011 Subaru Outback. The contact stated that the air bag light would intermittently illuminate when someone was seated in the front passenger seat. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer on several occasions and the contact was informed that the vehicle could not be repaired unless the failure was duplicated. The failure mileage was 10 and the current mileage 11,500. Updated 03/14/lj.