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2014 SUBARU FORESTER — Complaint #1650151

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NHTSA Complaint about AIR BAGS:SENSOR:OCCUPANT CLASSIFICATION filed February 27, 2020

NHTSA complaint #1650151 (ODI reference 11311944) concerns a 2014 SUBARU FORESTER and was filed on February 27, 2020. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 24, 2020. The vehicle had 160,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Washington based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as air bags:sensor:occupant classification, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.

The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.

Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same SUBARU FORESTER cohort independently describe similar air bags:sensor:occupant classification failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2014 SUBARU FORESTER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2014 SUBARU FORESTER
Component
AIR BAGS:SENSOR:OCCUPANT CLASSIFICATION
State
Washington
Mileage
160,000 mi

Complaint Description

WHILE MY SON WAS DRIVING NORMALLY WITH A PASSENGER IN THE RIGHT FRONT PASSENGER SEAT 2 DAYS AGO, THE RED AIRBAG SENSOR LIGHT CAME ON AND PASSENGER AIRBAG SIGN WENT TO "OFF". I TOOK IT TO THE SUBARU DEALER IN OLYMPIA, WA AND THEY CLAIMED THIS WAS CAUSED BY WATER DAMAGE (WE HAD NEVER SPILLED WATER IN THAT SEAT) AND THEY WANTED $2100 TO FIX THE PROBLEM BY REPLACING THE ENTIRE RIGHT PASSENGER SEAT ASSEMBLY. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE IT FIXED ELSEWHERE, BUT THEN WHILE DRIVING ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE SUBARU DEALERSHIP YESTERDAY, THE AIRBAG SENSOR LIGHT WENT OFF AND THE RIGHT PASSENGER AIRBAG STARTED WORKING AGAIN. RIGHT NOW IT IS WORKING AGAIN. WHILE IT WAS NOT WORKING, IT DIDN'T MATTER WHETHER THE CAR WAS IN MOTION OR STOPPED. THIS IS A VERY UNSAFE CONDITION IF A PASSENGER IS RIDING IN THE FRONT SEAT. WE CAN'T DEPEND ON THE AIRBAG BEING THERE IF NEEDED IN AN ACCIDENT.

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 1650151
ODI Number 11311944
Date Filed February 27, 2020
Failure Date February 24, 2020
VIN JF2SJAEC8EH

Similar AIR BAGS:SENSOR:OCCUPANT CLASSIFICATION Complaints for 2014 SUBARU FORESTER

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.