My 2016 Mazda3 has thrown up the passenger airbag on/off switch as being faulty. The alarm sounds all the time regardless of thee key-switch in the glovebox being on or off.
I looked on my primitive OBD readers. No fault codes found, but with those things, not much chance of seeing the SRS codes.
So I trawled the internet, lots of posts not quite on topic, none were any help apart from suggesting low battery voltage. It’s a little bit low (11.7) but now on a gentle boost just in case that might fix it.
I wiggled the seat connectors, no joy, and it’s a bit damp out there right now so taking the seat out to do the connection properly is not on, and not quite enough room in my garage for safe access (for my back).
I guess I’ll be phoning the dealer unless anyone has a better idea.
I can’t comment on your airbag light problem, just maybe…
I had an EPC light appear in my dash about 10 days ago. It was after I’d been mucking about taking both door cards off the front of my SEAT 14 plate. No electrical connections were disconnected in the process. I wanted to remove the door to glass weather strips, they’ve got really bad algae growth in the seal.
Anyways after a a few ups and downs with all 4 door windows (rears were done the day before) and switching on/off of the car ignition, about an hour the job was done.
First drive next day the said light above pinged up on the dash after around a 10 mins drive, I had Aircon on, wipers and lights on, it was dark.
Strange I thought, I’d done to suggest anything was amiss electrical wise. The only thing I did notice whilst in the action of upping and down of windows was a single bleep sound and then the radio turned itself off. Anyways when I got back home and the next day I read the codes, nothing came up, ‘no codes’ it said. Tested the battery and it said it was good but needed charging. So it got around 5 hours charge, well up to 94% so the meter said. I’ve since been out in the car, short journey only and no EPC light has appeared again.
Thinking back to when I needed a new battery on this car the local garage had diagnosed it needed one as the original wasn’t keeping a full charge. The EPC light had come on then including the TPS light amongst others. He dismissed them all and said low battery, we get that a good deal of the time with VAG cars. He resisted changing out any parts like throttle position sensor until the new battery was in place.
Problem fixed then and I think problem solved now I hope with topping the battery up. I did take some juice out of it by using the windows too much whilst the car was stood.
Hope yours is just that, low battery, but why?
Many short journeys, lots at only four miles, weather getting a bit colder, original battery and only 24k miles in seven years; it might be that time’s up for this i-stop-start battery.
In my experience, the Noco chargers are very good at sorting a battery. I’ll wait until the charger is happy, and then try it again.
However during first lockdown when it was low there were no other problems apart from the engine being a bit slow to turn over. That was when I added the charging socket to the battery, carefully ignoring the charge counting circuit on the earth clamp because I knew the charger could not cook it.
Same here with my daily driver, new battery about 4 years ago. It’s done 35k miles from new 2014. That original battery expired early because of lack of maintenance with little use in winter, lesson learnt with the replacement.
Also stop/start (although seldom used) so the battery needs to have a good charge in it mostly or as my local garage said, it sends signals (up on the dash) telling you it’s not happy.
The Milcars technician will get back to me shortly.
Removing neg terminal was a possibility I thought of but didn’t try and I suspect he might also suggest this. Or something else…
EDIT
3 hours later.
It is now OK! Thanks for the Nudge.
The tech was a bit baffled too, even after seeing pictures, which were apparently perfectly normal and a bit of discussion and a possible booking for a week’s time, at half price because we had a service recently…
So it was no battery for an hour while we had our meal.
Reconnect and try. OK.
I’ve no idea what it was, but OK going out to fill up with V-Power, so it’s good for SWMBO tomorrow.
