Air Bag Panel Indicator Light Doesn't Stay Off on 2000 Focus SE

IMHO:

You wouldn't drive around without a seatbelt(I'm guessing), so why would you continue driving a car who's intigral safety component is asking for help? Just making a point, you need to get the vehicle serviced. The airbag could either fail to deploy upon impact, or it could deploy for no reason. Either way it could be very harmful to you and your car.

hth,

tom @

I doubt it's an emergency. The dangerous scenario would be an improper deployment, but I've never heard of that in the Focus. The worst you might realistically expect is that for some reason the air bag would not deploy in an accident, but if you use your seat belts your risk is lessened.

By all means take it in ASAP if you wish, or you could just put a piece of black electrical tape over the light and wait until your next scheduled service, which I presume is fairly soon.

Ummm, I guess I didn't make myself clear enough. This just happened last week, pretty much right before Christmas. Priority wise it sat a little low on the list of things to take care of immediately but, I did say I was taking it in this week. I guess after bringing my cars in whenever the "Service Engine" lamp wouldn't go out and finding out it was either a bad connection or was programmed to remain lit after a certain period (i.e.50000 miles) and hearing the same from many others regarding the dreaded "Service Engine" light I kinda don't go into panic mode when I see a light stay on (excluding the temp and/or oil light--I prefer needle gages, actually). As far as seat belts go, yes I use them all the time. But it wasn't always so. I went for years without using them, and I remember when all cars didn't have them.

Anyway, I was h>

In fact, the combination of airbag and a seat belt that is not used could in some cases be more dangerous than a car without airbag. If You have a low speed (a speed that would normally only cause none or minor injury even without airbag) collision the airbag itself can kill You if You don´t use the seatbelt.

Personally I would not worry about it. Just take the thing in and get it corrected when you can.

It it kind of funny you bring this up as mine is on after a collision at 65 MPH with a deer even though the bags did not deploy, seat belts tightened on impact. Got the body work done however the shop did not reset the air bag system. Plan to take the car in after the first of the year to reset the air bag system and correct some engine stall problems I have been having.

My information relates to UK spec cars, but may still be relevant wherever you are.

The most likely cause of this is the connector to the seat belt pretensioners becoming detached or broken. This connector is under the front seats and is often damaged when the vehicle has been vacuum cleaned. The air bag warning light then stays on. Also, the red led by the clock will flash a fault code when you turn the ignition on. If you count the number of flashes, a dealer can tell you what the code represents. I can't remember if the seatbelt pretensioner code is 4 or 6 flashes.

The cure may just be to push the connector back together, or it may need the seat belt pretensioner replacing.

HTH, and apologies if this is not applicable to your vehicle.

Chris.

I had exactly the same problem when I bought my 2000 Focus (2nd Hand, at

The Airbag light refused to turn off. So I took mine into the garage and they tested the engine with one of those fancy computer things. The light isn't on any more... trouble is, are my airbags still working???