Drawers, Fridge Barrier & Air Bags?

[HarryO]

Finishing off my rear water & drawer setup and now the fridge barrier and wondering (which is dangerous).


Has anyone disabled the very rear area airbags which will impact the fridge and / or barrier if they go off.

Also if you unplug the airbag are you going to get a bunch of ongoing alarms..

Cheers.…
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[loanrangie]

I wouldn't touch the airbags, likely to be illegal to disable or remove them.

[BradC]

Finishing off my rear water & drawer setup and now the fridge barrier and wondering (which is dangerous).


Has anyone disabled the very rear area airbags which will impact the fridge and / or barrier if they go off.


I'd have thought if you had a shunt bit enough to trigger the air bags you'd have a bit more to worry about than a dented fridge.

[HarryO]

Agree it’s not the dented fridge or barrier that concerns me - more the camping gear packed in top or around the airbag turning into some sort of a projectile similar to the recent airbag recall notice.

Posted the same question on AULRO Facebook which had some discussion - useful info that came out of that is that:

1) it’s a curtain type airbag so will only fill the area of the window.
2) not sure but someone thought it may be interlocked to the foldup seat or belt.

[DieselLSE]

2) not sure but someone thought it may be interlocked to the foldup seat or belt.
Unlikely. Don't have time to check the wiring diagrams as I'm busy wiring up a TowPro, but I removed the third row seats and seat belts a few years ago and don't recall removing any wiring from either.

[SimmAus]

:

1) it’s a curtain type airbag so will only fill the area of the window.
.


I can confirm this…unfortunately from experience.

[John_D4]

It’s illegal to alter the safety device of a vehicle. If you have an accident you’ll end up with more problems then you know what to do with.

[Falcon500]

I would definitely not disable the airbag. The only thing I would be worried about is making sure the airbag deploys OK and does not get hung up on anything preventing it from getting into position. I wouldnt be too concerned about the projectile thing with a curtain airbag.

[jh972]

Confirm that there is no wiring in third or second row of seats. Have removed both with no problems but didn't touch air bags.
However no problem disabling air bags if you have removed the seats. Be interested to know if rear air bags are disabled with no passengers (as front is) and how.

[DiscoJeffster]

Confirm that there is no wiring in third or second row of seats. Have removed both with no problems but didn't touch air bags.
However no problem disabling air bags if you have removed the seats. Be interested to know if rear air bags are disabled with no passengers (as front is) and how.

From a legal perspective you cannot remove seats, seatbelts or airbags. The vehicle is registered with a certain passenger capacity and need to be able to support that. If you get an engineering recertification for the new configuration then yes, you could remove these things and not be at risk of a breach. This likely varies per state somewhat.

While people do remove seats all the time, that doesn’t mean it would pass an inspection.

[jh972]

From a legal perspective you cannot remove seats, seatbelts or airbags. The vehicle is registered with a certain passenger capacity and need to be able to support that. If you get an engineering recertification for the new configuration then yes, you could remove these things and not be at risk of a breach. This likely varies per state somewhat.

While people do remove seats all the time, that doesn’t mean it would pass an inspection.


Not being legal to ADD seats makes sense. Not being able to remove them doesn't.
I once tried to register a car with a roll bar in it, which impeded the rear passengers. I was told that I could remove the roll bar, OR remove the rear seat. Either was acceptable to the inspector.
Next thing we'll be told by some do-gooders that we can't remove carpet, or something. For god's sake use common sense - how does removing seats increase any risk?

[DiscoJeffster]

I’m not suggesting it increases or decreases the risk, and if you come across an inspector with commonsense then it won’t be an issue, but if you get one having a bad day, it’ll be a problem. I was once given a “yellow sticker” for this just because the cops needed something to ping me for. I had to restore everything back to factory internally.

You should never get pinged for it, but doesn’t mean you can’t be.

Anyhow, back to the OPs post, just leave the airbags alone.