60 bench removal for roadtrips

[Fozzy701]

Hey all,

First post here... thanks in advance for the advice. Just got the new Explorer a few months ago

Wife and I have 2 young children and when we visit her folks, we put the oldest in the 40 seat, and my wife and youngest in the 3rd row. To make access to the third row a bit easier and for the extra room, I remove the 60 seat altogether. This obviously sets the airbag light as the restraint system cannot read the belt buckle inflator in the 60 seat.

Questions,

1. When this seat is removed are all my airbags disabled? If this is the case I'd like to do something about this as we travel about 7 hours and a bit risky if we have no airbag protection.

2. Has anybody spoofed the connection to make the restraint system think the seat is still there? I believe all that's needed is a resistor that matches the resistance of the belt latch mechanism placed across the proper leads. Any unforeseen issues aside from the arbitrary, "you may set off all the airbags you idiot"??

Thanks guys

Foz

 

[peterk9]

Welcome to the Forum.
In doing an Internet search on #1, this seems to be the common answer;
When the airbag light or SRS warning comes on it should not be overlooked. ... When this light is on it means your safety system isn't working at 100% and in some cases, it could mean that your airbags are disabled and will not deploy in an accident.

Peter

 

[MDExpolorerSport]

Interested in this as well, we have at times taken the entire middle row out.