Questions and Answers

Dodge Spirit Airbag Light Q. I have a 1993 Dodge Spirit, V-6, 3.0 liter engine, automatic, with 105,000 miles. It's fuel injected, does not have ABS brakes, does have power steering, A/C (which doesn't work because the compressor is too expensive to replace) and cruise control, with rack and pinion steering.

The problem I'm having is that occasionally the air bag light comes on and stays on. Whenever this happens, the fan/blower does not work. Months will pass, and I will have no problem with it. Then, one day, I will turn the car on, the air bag light will go out when the rest of the dash lights go out, and then the air bag light will immediately come back on and will stay on. Usually it will go off after I've driven for a while, but not always.

There is a 100% correlation between the air bag light being on and the blower not working (I'm talking about the blower for the heater and fan, including the front window defroster). This is the only thing that is certain - the problem arises in hot weather and cold, when the engine is cold or warmed up, highway or city driving, etc.)

Last year, I did try taking it to the Dodge dealership once when this happened. Although I had been having the problem recently, it happened that the airbag light had already gone off and the car was "symptom free" when I got there. The guy at the service was busy and told me to come back sometime when it was happening (which isn't very helpful, since I live a long way away, and can't take time off from work every day to drive up there only to have the light turn off five minutes before I pull into the dealership lot and get turned away).

I should tell you that several years ago the factory-installed airbag in my car did deploy (I was involved in a minor accident, but the airbag sensor in the front of my car was hit and did activate). I had the car repaired at a reputable auto body shop, and everything was fine when I got it back. It passed state inspection, and the first incident of the airbag light coming on didn't happen for 10,000 or 12,000 miles or so after the repair.

After the accident, I did drive the car for a couple of months before I got it in to the shop to have it repaired. Since the airbag was hanging out of the steering wheel in the interim, the airbag light was on the entire time I was driving it for those few months. I don't know if that would have an effect, or not.

Anyway, this is not something that happens consistently, but it goes in streaks where I have the airbag light coming on. I'm concerned about this as a safety issue (Will my airbag deploy if I need it to? Will it deploy at random, when I don't want it to?) and also because I've taken care of my dear old car, and I really don't want to get rid of her just yet.

Any ideas?
Luci

A. The Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) is totally separate from any other electrical system in the car. It has it's own special connectors and separate harness (usually denoted by it's yellow color). So any connection between the SRS light being on and the blower motor not working is because of a shorted connection between the two systems, maybe due to the accident.

The one thing they do have in common is that both systems are fed power by the black/orange wire from the ignition switch. If the power windows (hope you have them) stop working when the SRS light is on and the blower motor is not working, then there is a damn good possibility of a bad ignition switch or broken black/orange wire.

It would have been nice if the dealer would have pulled the codes from the SRS computer and see what they were. The code would remain even though the SRS light goes out. If it shows a power loss to the SRS module, that would confirm my theory.