U0153 High Generic / SAE

U0153: Lost Communication With Side Restraints Control Module — Right

Network and Communication Lost Communication

What to do

The airbag warning light means the side airbags and curtain on the right of the car may not deploy in a crash.

Everything at U0152 applies: if anything inside the car has been apart recently — seats, carpets, sill trims, seat belt work, a stereo — say so, because a connector that looks perfectly seated but has not clicked fully into its lock is one of the commonest causes of this fault. Water inside the car is the other.

If warnings have appeared for both sides at once, that is worth saying and it changes the diagnosis. Two separate units failing at the same moment is unlikely; something feeding both of them is the far better explanation — a shared fuse, the main airbag computer, or the car's data network. Chasing each side separately wastes the money.

Do not have the light cleared, do not accept a second-hand airbag module, and refuse any offer to fit a resistor in place of a component.

What this code means

The right side restraints module has stopped being heard from. Everything at U0152 applies unchanged — the shorting bar in restraints connectors, the water path down the pillar, and the U0151 safety rules.

The one thing worth adding is what it means when both sides report at once, because it changes where to look entirely.

Two independent modules failing simultaneously is far less likely than one thing feeding both. The candidates are short and cheap to check:

A shared supply or fuse. Both side modules commonly sit on the same feed from the restraints module or the body module.
The restraints module itself, at U0151 — everything that reports to it goes quiet together when it does.
The bus, which is the U0100 argument: a fault on the network makes every module on it report lost communication with every other.

So a symmetrical fault is a clue rather than a coincidence, and chasing each side separately wastes the diagnosis.

And the kerbside asymmetry from U0454 is worth remembering when only one side reports. The kerbside door — the right in a right-hand-drive market, the left in a left-hand-drive one — is the one passengers use, the one that meets bollards and other cars' doors in car parks, and the one whose lower edge takes the most road spray. Minor repair and trim disturbance are simply likelier on that side.

Likely causes

Start here

Corroded or loose connector · easy
Water ingress into connector · moderate
Impact sensor disturbed during body repair · moderate
Damaged wiring under the front seats · moderate

Less common

Blown fuse or failed supply · easy
Faulty restraints control module · specialist

Symptoms

Components involved

Information, not instruction

CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.

Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.

Community experience

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The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
What you measured, not only what you replaced.
What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.