Passenger airbag off for my petite wife on my Forester 2023?

Posted by waytofall916@reddit | askcarguys | View on Reddit | 19 comments

Hi,

I own a Subaru Forester 2023 and I found that the passenger airbag sign is always “off” when my wife is sitting in the passenger seat. I have taken the car to the dealer and they said the car has no problem. They also claimed that there is a certain threshold of weight for the airbag to be 'on' but ridiculously, they could not even give me an exact number. May I know if the airbag is supposed to be on or off for her? My wife weighs \~83lbs and has a height of \~4’11”.

I also have the following questions:

Is there any chance I could return th car to the dealer? I bought the car about half a year ago and it has a 3.5k mileage. (It was a pity that we only noticed this recently.) I now live in Illinois which has a lemon law.
In general, should airbags to deployed for light-weight, short people sitting in passgener seats? The only risk I know of is that short/small people tend to sit very near to the steering wheel when driving which may cause more harm than protection (see: https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/air-bags). But on passenger seats, short people don't really need to sit very near to the front panel.

Any help is highly appreciated, as apparently, airbags are critical safety issues.

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japaneseBayBee@reddit

I love all the people supposing something g whwn thry have never worked in ER and seen the damage to smaller passengers from seat belt hanging , , broken necks , crushed trachea, torn gr3at vessels with death in less than 1 minute and traumatic internal injuries even from rear End colkision.. not evwb head On when they are just under the 110 limit so their airbag did not deploy. Attorneys are also more familiar than the Gen public eho believe they know the answers here. It os not a one size fits all solution that excludes 3/4 of adult females in the world and many adults who are not obese Americans.

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waytofall916@reddit (OP)

I think what you were suggested seems to be helpful but do you mind rephrase your point with less typos? I am not so sure whether you think that airbag being deployed or not deployed is more dangerous to smaller adults. I have heard of stories about damage of deployed airbags to smaller person in accidents. But I definitely want to know more.

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Natunia02@reddit

I'm having the same issue in my Crosstrek. I weigh the same as your wife and I'm 5'5, sometimes it'll detect me and sometimes it won't....

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waytofall916@reddit (OP)

Yep… I have contacted several parties in Subaru including several local dealers and some “security advocates” from Subaru. No one can give me an answer as to above which weight the airbag light will trigger and whether it’s safe to sit there for her. I haven’t been following up on this I should resume sometime..

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japaneseBayBee@reddit

That's so inclusive... all people at adult age regardless of ethnicity which for 3/4 of the planet is SMALLER than 150lb average and roughly 5 ft height is an avg... shoukd not have the option of airbag safety.

America is obese.. they coukd redesign the system to distribute the force in an appropriate number of directions, have the default be ON and you can opt to turn it off

But not to shutout 3/4 of adult females who aren't obese Americans... but .. I suppose you're not thinking there is diversity that profound in the world, when youre American 🤔

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MrDShark@reddit

She can sit in the back

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CarbonReflections@reddit

Sorry babe but we need to get you a booster seat.

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umrdyldo@reddit

That was might thought too.

But seriously you probably don’t want the airbag on when she sits there. It’s designed for larger people and will likely do more damage than good

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BLINGMW@reddit

lol, or, please eat a footlong sub and a milkshake for every meal

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captain_sta11@reddit

Subarus weight threshold is right around 100-105lbs if I remember right. Your wife is too small for the airbag to go off. Airbags are generally designed for an average adult so I’d imagine somewhere around 150lbs. Too light and they may actually do more harm than good. It’s why small children shouldn’t go in the front seat. It’s not just about how close but how much force the airbag itself deploys with. Most manufacturers it’s around 65-70lbs to trigger the airbag but Subaru is indeed higher.

This isn’t a lemon law issue since there is nothing wrong with the car. You can sell it back to the dealer but you are going to take a big loss on it. You’d take less of a loss selling privately or trading in(private sale would still net you the most in most cases).

It was on you as the consumer to make sure the vehicle you bought fit your needs and you didn’t make sure it did. I will admit I have never thought about the weight threshold but it’s still the same. It’s like buying a truck and then being unhappy you are getting the rated mileage because you didn’t look it up. The information is out there and you didn’t look it up as an informed consumer.

I do feel for you since your wife can’t help being small but unfortunately there’s not much you can do without taking a loss on the vehicle

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waytofall916@reddit (OP)

Where did you find the 100-105lbs threshold? As a comsumer, I cannot find this information anywhere posted officially by Subaru (e.g., the owner's manual). How am I supposed to know this and make a right and informative decision?
Why is this threshold of Subaru considerly lower than other manufacturers? Any legtimate explanation and consideration on that? Again, I could not find any official explanation on that (at least not on the user's manual or from those work in the dealer). There are indeed quite a lot of people weighing less than 100. Besides the responsibility needed to be taken by the consumers (which I assume there are definitely quite a few), shouldn't the manufacturere also take some responsibility of properly informing the consumers? I feel that since Subaru has such a threshold considerably higher than other manufacturer's, this should be labelled explicitly in front of the passenger seat (LMAO).

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captain_sta11@reddit

Unfortunately, it falls on you whether that’s right or wrong. It would be the same for a very large person. An average airbag couldn’t adequately protect someone who is 350+ lbs (I don’t know this exact number, just using an example). They have the same responsibility. You’d have to ask at the dealer or reach out to Subaru Of America for an answer if it’s not in the manual. Airbags are not something a normal person should/would mess with so the information about the technical details aren’t as readily available. They don’t put every piece of information about the entire vehicle on the manual, the manual would be magnitudes larger. They put what is relevant to the majority of people. By being outside the average range, it really falls on you to ask the questions important to you.

I don’t know why Subaru has a higher threshold. Maybe in their development process, they found that a lighter person was better off not having the airbag go off in their vehicles or something else. You’d have to find a way to ask a Subaru engineer.

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waytofall916@reddit (OP)

Well, then the information is not really “out there”, I would say.

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Tractorguy69@reddit

All of this boils down to F=ma, so the Force your wife is generating in a collision would be the 83lbs multiplied by the acceleration (deceleration in most cases). The airbag also deploying will create an opposite force (towards your wife as she is trying to continue forward. Given that she is comparatively tiny that counter Force could be exceptionally dangerous and create significant risk of further injury. You might also look at this as Subaru is the only company to care enough to mitigate that risk. Also the amount of force her body is trying to dissipate is quite small and other restraint systems may be more than adequate. Honestly trust the engineers on this one she really doesn’t want the added punch of an over eager airbag in the event of such a high energy collision.

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waytofall916@reddit (OP)

Thanks for the explanation, and this is something that I am in need of. I will dig in further, especially will try to seek professional guidance from Subaru.

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