How does the weight sensor work for passenger seat

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Seems kind of silly to be worried about this right now.

But i spilled dish soap on my passenger seat, not a small amount but not huge. The seat belt alarm goes off now unless I plug the seat belt in. Did I damage the weight sensor or something?

I don’t even know how to get the soap out? I guess I can go and press on it until it comes out?

In: Engineering

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a button that takes a certain amount of weight to push. To give you a glimpse into the car’s logic:

If the button is pushed and the seatbelt is not latched, sound the alarm.

If either of those is not true( weight is not high enough or seatbelt IS latched), turn off alarm.

In all likelihood the water is shorting the button so the car thinks it’s pressed when it’s not. Should be fine after drying out

Anonymous 0 Comments

You’ve ruined the wiring, the big question is permanently, or temporarily!

Water usually dries out, but the soap may continue to bridge the connection. I would assume you will need to do a deep cleaning, possibly involving a shop to dismantle the seat.

Give it a few days, see what happens first.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The weight sensor is normally just a big button with some resistance in between, making it react when the the weight exceeds a certain level.

In this case it might have caused the to shortfuse. Try to let it dry out properly.