The airbag is designed failsafe in other words when the airbag light is on its just saying there's a problem not that the system won't engage

A perfect example is when the butt sensor is not working the airbag will go off just in case somebody is sitting there. If the sensor is active but doesn't detect a butt then that passenger airbag will not go off in the event of a crash

That is my understanding of how it works. I wouldn't be doing experiments.

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2011 E70 • N55 (me)
2012 E70 • N63 (wife)