The Causes of an Airbag Warning Light Illumination in a VW in Houston

Airbags are one of the most important safety features of modern cars. They can make all the difference between survival and fatality in a car crash. If the airbag warning light in your Volkswagen stays on, you should bring it in right away for service.

The airbag light in your Volkswagen comes on momentarily when you start your car as it checks for the weight of you and your passengers. This ensures each airbag will protect you as designed. When the sensors detect specific weight parameters, it will enable the airbag for the safety of you and your passenger. The light will then turn off. If it stays on or blinks while you’re driving, you will need it serviced.

If you notice that this light fails to turn on while starting up your engine, this also could be a sign of an underlying problem that you need to get sorted.

The Airbag Safety System

Airbags work based on Newton’s second law of motion. In the context of a car accident, a vehicle undergoes a sudden deceleration within a split second. When this happens, the occupants of the vehicle don’t decelerate at a natural speed. Instead, their body continues to move forward, for example, at 60 mph. This would cause a person not wearing a seat belt to hit the dashboard or steering wheel at a force equivalent to 60 mph. This is as scary as it sounds.

By wearing a seat belt, it prevents your torso from moving forward and hitting the dashboard, windshield, or steering wheel. However, your head, neck, and arms still move forward at the speed your were traveling. This is where the design of airbag safety comes into play.

The airbag in your car is designed to deploy in a split second to absorb force damage and bring your head, neck, and body to a softer stop. It accomplishes this thanks to the built-in sensors that detect a collision in a millisecond and triggers an explosive reaction. This explosive reaction ignites sodium azide pellets in the airbag, causing them to release nitrogen gas that fills up the airbag within milliseconds.

This whole process happens as soon as the collision happens, such that your head and torso only reach the airbag when it starts to deflate, reducing the chances of the air pressure in the airbag causing you any unnecessary harm. It’s an innovative, modern safety feature that has saved millions of lives all over the world.

Causes of illumination of airbag light

There are some common reasons why the airbag light in your Volkswagen is alerting you to a problem. The leading reason for this is that your seat belt may have an issue. The seatbelt is your car’s first safety mechanism, and when something is wrong in it, the airbag sensors will receive that information and light up the airbag warning. This often happens when the seatbelt isn’t fastened correctly or when there are foreign objects in the seat belt buckle.

Another cause of the airbag light in your Volkswagen staying on is a minor accident that may trigger the steel ball that alerts the sensors to a collision but did not cause enough force to deploy the airbags. The sensors will need to be reset so they can deploy properly in a major accident.

The clockspring may also be a cause for the airbag light staying on. This is the vehicle component that started the Tanaka recall in 2015 that saw Volkswagen recall thousands of vehicles due to a manufacturing error. The clockspring may become damaged prematurely, preventing the airbag from deploying.

The airbag compartment may be exposed to water damage from flooding if you’ve driven through flooded streets. This moisture damage often affects the car’s computer and sensors, possibly causing it to send out faulty signals or correct signals that the sensors have shorted out. It’s best to seek help if you believe water damage may be an issue.

European Service Center

Because of the vital role that the airbag plays in your car, you should always ensure that it is working at all times. Accidents happen when we least expect them, so it’s important to know that you can count on your airbags for safety.

When the airbag light in your Volkswagen illuminates longer than usual, your first step should be to consult a Volkswagen specialist. European Service Center has a team of certified experts who know their way around imported cars, including Volkswagens.

Visit our shop if you’re in and around Alpharetta, Chamblee, Norcross, Dunwoody, Buckhead, Roswell, and Atlanta, GA. We are happy to assist you, so call us today!