Hello, long time lurker of this forum, first time poster!

As we all know, the airbag recall has affected many of the 2nd gen IS owners, including myself.

I live in south florida where its very hot and humid, both of which they say will cause higher chances of this recall issue which from my understanding is a piece of metal that comes flying at your face along with the airbags?

I have looked all over the place and nobody can give a straight answer...
I NEED to know if there is any way to DISABLE the passenger airbag. I drive a 09 IS250 and there is no place to insert a key to turn off the airbag (that i know of)

My theory is that if i disconnect one of the wires that is under the passenger seat, it will no longer be able to read the weight thus turning the airbag permanently off because it thinks nobody is sitting there.

Will this work, or will it do the complete opposite? what wire is it if i will work? and if that won't work, then what will?


Thank you to anyone that can help me out, i surly am not the only one trying to figure this out and someone on here has got to have the answer for me how to just completly shut it off.....Worst comes to worst ill have to figure out how to disassemble the dash and literally take the airbag out if thats what it comes to. If thats even possible....


Thanks again anyone who can help me!!!!!

 

So what you posted about removing the seat sensor telling the passenger airbag to be "active" or not is probably correct AND the best way of going about it. Hopefully you will never have to find out the hard way, but it's a sound theory.

 

Just so I have an understanding. Is the danger when the airbag is deployed during an accident? Or over time will outside climate and age cause the air bag to deploy on its own without an accident?

 

The danger is when the air bag deploys, the metal case that contains the explosive charge becomes flying shrapnel. This will not cause the air bag to go off on its own, just in a collision.

 

Try this: Look under the passenger seat. There are three connections to connect seat to car.
1) power block connection square (white)
2) seat air bag to the side (yellow)
3 smaller white or grey connection which is the seat sensor.

Disconnect no 3. When you do that you will notice that you will get 2 messages. 1) passenger air bag off 2) air bag icon with light with line through it.

You our will get these messages even if someone is sitting in the passenger seat.

 

Good luck with that. Tampering with the airbag sensor will likely get you in deeper trouble. If you're in an accident and your passenger is injured or worse because the airbag didn't go off or the disabled weight sensor made it deploy with more or less force, you'll have serious legal issues.

 

Disconnecting the seat sensor - will that disable only the front bag in the dash, or will it also disable the side torso airbag in the seat? I'd rather disconnect one bag than disable multiple bags.

 

Like TimboIS said above, i suggest you leave it and wait for your turn for the recall, the issue on the airbag is 1 out of million and it did not happened to our Lexus IS, the thing that they are on recall list because date made airbag model may be effected, so NTSHA decided to put every car make and model within the date of takada airbag released on recall FOR 100% SURE, for example i build 10 car and there only 1 has broken airbag, for USA safety reason they will just get those 10 cars airbag replacement, they do not have time to test all the 10 cars, to do that they will waste more time and money and more hassle and also it's electrical not mechanical, that's why they just gonna do replacement. Yes you'll get sue if something happen when that airbag disconnected by the consumers.

Those guys with airbag steering wheel replaced with aftermarket one without airbag, insurance won't pay if something happen, Lowered a car and install bodykit or Turbo is fine but not airbag or any safety features. You know better, how Insurance workout.

 

don't mess with the airbags.