Cause
Faulty occupant classification module
The module that decides who is in the passenger seat — an adult, a small adult, a child, a child seat, or nobody — and tells the restraints module what to do about it. It reads a mat of weight sensors in the seat cushion, and on many vehicles the seat belt tension too.
The reason it exists is a lesson the industry paid for. Early airbags deployed at one force for everyone and injured or killed children and small adults in crashes that would otherwise have been survivable. A bag inflating at three hundred kilometres an hour into somebody sitting close to it is a weapon, so the system has to know who is there before it decides what to do.
It is blamed far more often than it fails. The commonest cause of a classification fault is not the module but the load it is reading: a heavy seat cover, a cushion, an aftermarket heater pad, or something wedged under the seat. Next commonest is the harness beneath the cushion, which flexes on every seat adjustment. Remove everything from the seat and check the wiring before condemning the module.
And it is calibrated to the seat it was installed in. A seat removed and refitted — for a repair, a retrim, or a used replacement — very often needs the classification recalibrating with a scan tool afterwards, which is a step easily missed and a fault easily misread as a failed part.
Typically specialist work. Needs equipment or training most home workshops do not have.
Codes this can cause (24)
Codes where this is a likely explanation first, rather than merely a possible one.
- B00A0 Occupant Classification System Likely for this code High
- B00A1 Occupant Position System Likely for this code High
- B00B0 Driver Seat Occupant Classification Sensor A Likely for this code High
- B00B1 Driver Seat Occupant Classification Sensor B Likely for this code High
- B00B2 Driver Seat Occupant Classification Sensor C Likely for this code High
- B00B3 Driver Seat Occupant Classification Sensor D Likely for this code High
- B00B4 Driver Seat Occupant Classification Sensor E Likely for this code High
- B00B7 Driver Seat Occupant Position Sensor A Likely for this code High
- B00B8 Driver Seat Occupant Position Sensor B Likely for this code High
- B00B9 Driver Seat Occupant Position Sensor C Likely for this code High
- B00BA Driver Seat Occupant Position Sensor D Likely for this code High
- B00BB Driver Seat Occupant Position Sensor E Likely for this code High
- B00C0 Passenger Seat Occupant Classification Sensor A Likely for this code High
- B00C1 Passenger Seat Occupant Classification Sensor B Likely for this code High
- B00C2 Passenger Seat Occupant Classification Sensor C Likely for this code High
- B00C3 Passenger Seat Occupant Classification Sensor D Likely for this code High
- B00C4 Passenger Seat Occupant Classification Sensor E Likely for this code High
- B00C7 Passenger Seat Occupant Position Sensor A Likely for this code High
- B00C8 Passenger Seat Occupant Position Sensor B Likely for this code High
- B00C9 Passenger Seat Occupant Position Sensor C Likely for this code High
- B00CA Passenger Seat Occupant Position Sensor D Likely for this code High
- B00CB Passenger Seat Occupant Position Sensor E Likely for this code High
- B0060 Driver Seat Belt Tension Sensor High
- B0061 Passenger Seat Belt Tension Sensor High
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