Stopped at one of the self car wash that has the power washer. I brought my own rags to hand wash. I was power washing the front end to get the bugs off. When I was done I started the car and the Air Bag lights came on and stayed on . I called the local MINI shop (Towson Mini) and the SA thinks it may be a sensor in the front that may gave gotten wet. He said not to worry and I will be ok driving back to Florida next week.

 

What was the final result of your aig bag light staying on? Interestingly, mine came on after washing the car including some cleaning under the bonnet.

 

I thought the airbags weren't working when the light is on--like the DSC and the ABS?

 

Depends on many many factors. If you get the light ALWAYS take it to the delaer and have them check it out as they can read the specific code pinpointing the issue and determining the safety of use.

 

The dealer replaced a defective sensor in the passenger seat. I'm thinking that my aggressive vacuuming of the interior at the car wash may have hastened its demise.

 

I have a lot of experience with air bag lights, mine hascome on about 5 times or more. Usually when you clean the car you move the seats back and forward or you put some cleaning device behind them and this causes the ultra sensitive cable/sensor whatever to fail.

 

Have you had them remove the connectors and just wire it directly? I had mine pop on making after making a U-turn, yeah that one raised a few eyebrows in the service dept. Sensor was replaced under warranty, if it goes again I'll just have them wire it directly (I know a few on NAM have had some serious connector issues so they did that just to remove the problem all together)

 

The sensor in the passanger seat is an occupant sensor to detect for children or adults. It is a Bosch system and uses strain gauge technology that is every easily knocked out of calibration. This system only turns the bag on and off in the passanger seat ONLY. This sensor is different that the one at the front of the car.

 

Thanks! I think I'm on my way to the dealer.

I vacuum very agressively, I do U-turns, I wash alot, I travel with laptop and other heavy bags on the passenger seat, and I installed the remote auto up 3 weeks ago (though the light came on 2-1/2 weeks later).

I hope my warranty is still good at 43,000 miles. My June '02 build date is definitely over 4-years.

Or, I'll just paste a piece of tape over the light and ignore it.

 

My air bag light came on a while back (with about 60K miles). I was well passed my warranty, (now have almost 71K miles on it) and the mini dealership replaced it completely free of charge. I had driven the car for about 5000 miles or so before taking it to the dealer, there was no safety issues that I experienced....of course I didn't get into an accident so I don't know if the airbag would have gone off