What is that sensor?

[buze]

Changing my (facelift) seats for sport seats from a non-facelift car, there is an extra sensor on my old seats -- what is it for? do I need it?

 

[t-tony]

Ejector seat??

Tony.

 

[Mint]

Looks to me like the electronics box to do with the 'seat occupancy sensor'. It controls whether the passenger airbag deploys based on if there is a passenger in the seat.

 

[buze]

Looks to me like the electronics box to do with the 'seat occupancy sensor'. It controls whether the passenger airbag deploys based on if there is a passenger in the seat.

Could it have an impact on airbag codes or issues? My car has side airbags, would that be a problem? it's one of the RARE car with side airbags, which sounded like a great idea at the time! It has special card doors for the side airbags, and possibly that sensor as well.

 

[Faheem]

As @Mint saids that definitely looks like the seat occupancy sensor.

If you remove it or if faulty it'll trigger the airbag light and none of the airbags will deploy in case of an accident (as the airbag light is on).

If faulty, you can buy a bypass module from eBay which tricks the system into thinking someone is sat on the passenger seat and so it'll always fire the passenger airbags in case of an accident regardless of whether or not someone is sat in the passenger seat.

The theory behind the sensor is to stop your passenger airbags from deploying if nobody is sat in the seat. I imagine this is to save on repair costs.

 

[Jjim]

Yep, passenger occupancy sensor. Had this on my prefacelift 2.8

 

[Sean d]

If you don't have a passenger airbag, DON'T connect it, it will trigger a fault and your light will come on, I had this issue on my last Z and it took a bloody age for me to realise this was the porblem, just ignore it as I have on the M seats that I have just fitted to the 2.8

 

[Brian H]

If you want to delete this there is a small device you plug in to stop the fault light coming on.