Yesterday the airbag warning light lit up the instrument panel of our long-term 2009 Suzuki SX4. You may remember that this had happened before. It was an easy fix last time, hopefully it will be again. We'll let you know.
In this shot, you can obviously see that the Suzuki's airbag warning light is on, but so is the low fuel light despite the car having traveled just 215.4 miles on the tank of regular. Not good.
Scott Oldham, Inside Line Editor in Chief @ 5,987 miles
redliner says:
10:44 AM, 05/18/09
This is the kind of stuff that turnes people off to a brand. Sure, the airbag error does not affect drivability, but its an anoying hassle, and the low fuel makes it feel like the car gets even less mpg becuse you have to stop every five minutes and fill up.
redliner says:
10:48 AM, 05/18/09
I meant to say low fuel range^
subcompact39 says:
11:05 AM, 05/18/09
I know there's discussion about this on the SX4 forum, http://www.sx4club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5057. From what I've read, Suzuki is aware of this issue. Mine came on when I first bought the car, but hasn't come on since.
As for the fuel, yes, it's got a tiny fuel tank. The most mileage I've gotten thus far has been 275 (all highway cruising) on one tank. Only the AWD models have the 11-gallon tank. The FWD versions have a 13 gallon bladder. Even so, I've been very happy with my SX4 and would buy another one in a heartbeat.
nealibob says:
11:37 AM, 05/18/09
I would actually think that the indicator would affect drivability. If that indicator is on, the assumption has to be that the airbag system is completely offline, regardless of what the condition actually is. Considering cars tend to be designed with the assumption that airbags are present and functional, I would think that the car would be dangerous to operate if that light is on.
It probably would not stop me, since I drove a 2003 MINI with the light on for 6 months, but it can be more than just an annoying red light (i.e. sometimes it actually means something is seriously wrong). That was the case with the MINI. What really chapped me in that case was the dealership could not figure out what was wrong, and needed to replace a $1000 cable just to diagnose the problem. At that point, I decided to trade in instead of repairing when the costs were in multiples of $1000 and unknown.