Superhoob

The air bag warning light came on in my explorer yesterday. The dealer says it is "pretensioner kit", something located under the seat, and want over $500 to fix it. Does anyone know anything about this? I am thinking about taking the seat out myself (which the dealer says is required to fix the problem) to check things out.

Greg54

Hi,

My AU III Fairmont light comes on occasionally. It seems to be related to the position of the driver seat. Did you have any luck in fixing yours

Cheers

Johnny Mullet

The pretensioner is the actual buckle in the seat. Remove the seat and replace it to fix it. If you are not familiar with SRS, then pay a professional.

Greg54

The light was flashing 4 then 6 flashes. I eventually got hold of computer that diagnosed an open circuit in the drivers seat. Further investigation found a broken wire from a lead going to the seat. A bit of solder and some tape and everything is back to normal.

hurk

Airbag warning light:
http://www.escape-central.com/1forum/showthread.php?threadid=27756
TSB 05-17-11
Part # 4L8Z-78610E22-A $38 each
Ford Truck: Illuminated air bag light.
The owner of a 2001-04 Escape SUV may come into your shop complaining of an illuminated air bag light. When he does, get out your scanner and start checking for DTCs in computer memory. If you get code B1994 or B1198, you're dealing with electrical gremlins in the driver- or passenger-side air bag circuits, respectively.

The cause of the gremlins, says Ford, is an intermittent connection at connector C367 (driver's side) or C337 (passenger side) of the body harness wire terminal crimps. Installing a pigtail connector from a new repair kit (Part No. 1L8Z-14A411-A) into the circuit should turn off the air bag light immediately.

Re by Jeepsbeme in response to someone complaining about the high price for a repair quote of $450:
I think you need to ask your dealer to double-check the part number and their pricing. The $450 price was probably accurate for the original TSB 04-24-04 fix that required replacing both seat belt pretensioners. But that TSB was later superceded by TSB 05-17-11 which is for a simple connector kit. My dealer contact says the MSRP for the 4L8Z-78610E22-A is $38 each. I suspect your dealer priced out the wrong kit part number for you.
(note by jmk: in regards to the seatbelt tensioners there's a TSB for making the repair & involves using teflon tape or something)