The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and Nissan issued a recall which affects 989,701 cars in US and around another 60,000 units in Canada market. Affected models include the 2013 and 2014 Altima, Sentra, Pathfinder, Leaf; 2013 NV200, and also Infiniti JX35, Q50 and QX60.
The defect root cause lies in the software that monitors the vehicle’s airbag system. For the passenger seat, there is a mechanism that if the weight does not reach a lower limit (which means the seat is empty or occupied by a child), the passenger side airbag should be deactivated and should not deploy in a crash (because there is no need to deploy if the seat is empty, and should not deploy because younger child may be injured by the forces of the deploying airbag). But some software issues in the affected Nissan vehicles will deactivate the passenger airbag, even if there is actually an adult sitting in the seat.
Two accidents, in which the passenger airbag failed to deploy, are identified by Nissan; But Nissan does not conclude the actual causes in these two accidents are related to this software issue recall.
Nissan is implementing this recall and will send out the notice to corresponding owners starting mid-April.
Notes by Editor: for a modern vehicle, not only the software that controls the airbag, but also the sensor’s placement in the passenger seat, is important. I remembered during a previous test drive of a car from another manufacturer, our co-pilot sits in the front passenger seat but the airbag deactivation light is still on in the dash. Later we found out the caveat is, the passenger need to move his body as much as possible back against the backrest, then the sensor can pick up his weight. This indicates the weight sensors are installed too backward in the bottom cushion.
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