1. My passenger airbag light comes on saying that the airbag is off even when someone is in the passenger seat. Obviously i am taking it in for service but was wondering if anyone else had this.

2. When i take off from a stop i sometime hear a light clunking down near my feet (Not rotational like other threads i found). Its a one time sound and then its gone. I hear the same thing when i take off and the doors lock. Again its a light clunk down by my feet. Anybody else have this?

 

My guess would be the ABS system calibrating. Or is this noise seemingly coming from inside the cabin?

 

You are not alone. I get the exact same thing. I'll get it checked during my first oil change since I'm usually the only one in the car anyway.

 

I get the same noise....if I take of a little hard from the car being cold it clunks...I was thinking it might be the axles locking up or adjusting from one side to the other....seems to be from the passenger side...??

 

I'll comment on #2 first. What some here describe as a 'rotational sound' could be described by other folks (including me) as a 'soft clunking' sound. It begins around the same time (or very quickly after) the doors lock, which happens in my car at around 17 MPH. This soft clunking is fairly obviously coming from somewhere underneath the car, is only a few clunks (less than a half dozen?), and lasts only a few seconds. I feel sure you are hearing the same sound we are all hearing, and describing it in words I feel are very accurate. This sound seems to be fairly universal in the '09 Maxima, and is not a sign of anything wrong.

As to question #1, if the person sitting in the passenger seat is under 115 pounds, we enter ar area where the 'person sensor' for the seat may decide there is no person there. We have had several folks over the past year or so who have had this type of problem. If, however, your passenger is clearly over 115 pounds, you may have an outright problem, like Boone mentioned with his car.

 

I got that too. When my wife (115 lbs) sits in the passenger seat, the airbag light comes on saying that the airbag is off and stays on for a long time, sometimes more than 15 minutes, and then turns off. I am not sure -- when the light turns off, is it because the airbags turned on?

When I (145 lbs) sit in the passenger seat, the airbag light comes on and goes off almost immediately.

When no one is sitting in the passenger seat (fortunately that is the case most of the time), the airbag light comes on and goes off almost immediately.

Nissan couldn't get a basic safety equipment like the airbags right in a $37k+ car. Thats shameful!

 

yea everybody gets that clunking sound when the cars cold, from what i heard its the abs's way of checking itself to make sure its working properly

 

yup my wifes about 105 so thats the issue.Time to fatten her up. All joking aside that seems like a serious safety issue.

 

hmm does anyone have windshield problem? my windshield tend to fog up and even tho i turn on the defrost it only clears up a little bit and i am forced to use the windshield wiper to clean it but seconds later it becomes foggy/misty/dirty again

 

Two different situations here. The defrost is to clear the INSIDE fogging and help melt OUTSIDE ice, while the wipers are only to clear the OUTSIDE of the windshield.

With my car, if the inside of the window begins to fog up, the defroster takes only five or ten seconds to completely clear it.

I have found that the best way to keep the fog from forming inside the windshield in the first place is to run the HVAC system with the air conditioning on (takes the moisture out of the air), but with the temperature setting at a comfortable level, which may even be as high as 80 degrees in cold weather.

 

Yes i agree with the airbag light. When noone is sitting there the light is usually off which means the airbag is active. When my brother gets in the car (weighs 135 pounds) the light turns on which me the airbag is deactivated. But as soon as i say I'm going to take it to the dealer which is about 15-20 min later the light then goes off which means the airbag is now active. i guess Nissan cant get the airbag thing right. Sometimes i don't want him or anyone to ride up front. God forbid i have a frontal collision it would be bad.

 

One correction: If the system thinks the passenger seat is NOT occupied, the airbag light comes on when you start the car so you will know the bulb is working, THEN GO OFF, with the AIRBAG SYSTEM STAYING OFF. IF, HOWEVER, there is someone in the passenger seat that is over 115 pounds, the light does the same thing, BUT THE AIRBAG SYSTEM IS ON. In other words, when the light is off, with the airbags can be either active or inactive, depending on the situation.

BUT, if someone under 115 pounds sits in the passenger seat, the light comes on and STAYS ON, telling us the system knows something or somebody under 115 pounds is on the seat, but that the airbags are NOT ON.

I agree with you that this passenger seat airbag situation is somehow not right. My wife agrees with me that the weight cutoff just cannot be set higher than 100 pounds, and probably should be much lower than that. Unfortunately, it seems every '09 Maxima has that same 115 pound cutoff. The ideal solution would be for the bags to have two settings, with a softer deploy for seat weights between say 40 and 115 pounds.

 

With reference to light's post...

So the light going off after remaining on for quite some time (say more than 5 mins) means the airbags are now active?

If that is true, here is my confusion:

When I (145 lbs) sit in the passenger seat, the airbag light comes on and goes off almost immediately (within a few seconds). That means the airbag is active?

When no one is sitting in the passenger seat, the airbag light comes on and goes off almost immediately (within a few seconds). That means the airbag is inactive?

Notice that in the two events above, the light behaves similarly but the airbag behaves differently. Is that what is supposed to happen?

I wonder if the driver's airbag is working or am I driving from the "death seat".

 

All I have an answer to is #1 and that is that anyone 115ibs or less the airbag will automatically turn itself off because if the air bag were to deploy (knock on wood) someone weighing 115 or less would be better off with out the air bag as if it were to come out it would cause more injury to say person.

 

Why

 

Probably because of the amount of force with which the airbags deploy. The thinking is that a lighter weight person would have trouble withstanding that force. I cannot say where they got the magic number of 115 for sure though. Probably from some poor crash test dummies.

 

I have seen that same statement several times in several places, and that is why I said in my post yesterday that the only good solution is a two-level airbag, where the deployment force is determined by the weight of the person in the seat. Having NO airbag for a 100 pound person is not a viable solution.

 

Are we talking warm, dry conditions? The first month I had my 09, the windshield fogged up all the time- even at night when no humidity. It has since gotten much better and I'm attributing it to the engine just breaking in. The VQ35 is known for running hot..

 

Always happened right off the bat when I pulled down the alley out of my garage, thought a low hanging branch managed to touch the car no matter how careful I was. Thought it could be a goofy neighbor kid tossing a rock or BB at me that I wanted to catch.
THEN, Ding Ding..............it was the freaking door locks doing their thing at 15 MPH.
I'll never tell anybody about that!

 

Heh, heh, heh. First time my locks locked, I rose several inches off my seat.

 

About the 115lb thing. It's really designed for children in booster or car seats, tho I know none of us put them up front right? LOL

Some of those car seats get surprisingly heavy. Where they came up with that weight tho, not sure.

I've been "hit" by a front and side airbag (not my fault) Happy to be alive, but it hurt like hell. Both of the insides of my arms were burned and bruised when it blew my hands off the wheel and into the roof console where the lights/sunroof controls are. You have the equivalent of a blank shotgun shell going off in your face. There's an amazing amount of power and pressure there. I'm no "little" guy, I hover around 195, and it beat me up really bad. I was sore for weeks. But like I said, better than the alternative.

http://compusmurf.smugmug.com/Cars/2...16374014_DQeui

 

Okay, I don't ever want to experience that. It looks like you got hit by a wrecking ball. Glad you survived. I thought getting rear ended by a car doing about 30mph was bad. That was a life-changing accident because it resulted in me getting my first Maxima.

 

I know how you feel...drove my 03' maxima into the side of a tractor trailer cab at about 80mph...never saw it coming
I'll post a pic of it when I get a chance....it is a shame, I loved that car however the accident did lead to my 09' beauty lol