Rain triggers airbag light

[FACTagent]

My airbag light will come after I start or while driving my 3 when it's been raining steady for several hours (11/03 build). Sometimes shutting off the car while keeping my seat belt on, restarting, taking seatbelt off and then putting it back on clears the light, sometimes not. Problem will persist intermittently for a day or two after the rain. Of course, by the time I got to the dealer, the light was no longer coming on and they did find any codes. I'm going to bring it back in when their guy with the high pressure water machine is there and they will do a leak test under the theory that there may be a water leak where one of the sensors is. I am not sure if this is the bad sensor issue or something else. Thoughts?

 

[FACTagent]

BTW - Car washes DO NOT cause this problem. It has to be several hours of steady to heavy rain.

 

[bluntman]

I asssume that you are talking about the driver's side airbag, it's a known problem. Take you car to your dealer and have them replace the airbag sensor. The story going around the 'net is that during construction, the robot or whomever who installed the airbag sensor, bolted it on too tight and either broke or cracked the housing. As soon as water penetrates the housing is shorts out the sensor. The parts are apparently on back order since this issue supposedly took Mazda by surprise.

My dad's 3 has this issue and he's been driving around in a loaner car for a couple of weeks. Your dealer should offer you a rental, if not call Mazda USA and get them to authorize a loaner for you. The last thing they need is if, God forbid, a Mazda 3 owner gets into an accident and the driver's airbag does not deploy at all because of a faulty sensor.

 

[Mazda Tech]

We have had tons of 3's come in with the air bag light, and it's always the front crash sensor. We've had TONS of them. All we do is plug in a new sensor and if the light goes out, done, no need to waste time checking and clearing codes, lol.