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·The Insight was going to be my wife's commuter car and our baby girl was going to be the passenger. For her protection, I needed to install a disabling switch or disable the airbag. I was about to put the switch in and decided. "Why am I doing this? This is a lot of hassle, money I don't want to spend and it can't be that tough to disarm the passenger airbag can it." No adult was going to be a passenger and therefore I didn't really need a switch. Therefore, I hit the internet, looked at the manual and started poking around in the car.
I disabled the Passenger Airbag on my 2001 Insight instead of adding a costly and (for me) annoying switch. You may decide to install the switch or you may desire to disable the Passenger Airbag itself. Here is what I did should you desire to do the latter.
Disclaimer: I'm telling you what I did; I'm not telling you what you should do. If you decide to do this as well, you should do your own research on how dangerous airbags are and how to avoid injuring yourself or others. You should be prepared to take responsibility for disabling the airbag; there is a risk involved. You shouldn't allow anyone into the passenger seat without warning them that the airbag is disabled.. if you allow them in the seat at all. You should know that if you follow this proceedure the airbag is still there and could still concievably go off.
1) Pull out the fuse. Look in your manual and figure out where the SRS (Safety Restraint System) fuse is in the interior of the car and pull it out. The fusebox you want to find is alongside the wall of the car next to your left drivers leg. Pull out the SRS fuse. You can find the fuse puller in the fuse box under the hood if it won't come out easily. (This step may actually do nothing, but it made me feel better).
2) Disconnect. Open the hood, unscrew the clamps and pull the clamps off the battery and make sure they can't accidently make a connection. I didn't do this because I didn't know about it... but you should! (Someone else posted this about airbags)... As always it's a really really good idea to disconnect the 12 volt battery first for 10 minutes to let the capacitor drain down so there's no chance you accidentally blow it (extremely unlikely anyways). By the time I was ready with step 4, time had expired... but I would suggest you actually count off the 10 minutes.
3) Get Access. Remove the Glove Box. This is minorly of tricky because you think you might break it, but its not that difficult. You need to unscrew the hinges down below, push/pinch in the sides of the back of the Glove Box and lift it off its holding pegs. Tools Needed: Screwdriver.
4) Disconnect. Look in there and you will see a plastic connector harness... trace it back to the airbag to make sure you have the right one. Disconnect. I taped up the ends with electrical tape for added protection. Tools Needed (Optional): Electrical Tape.
5) Clean-Up. Put back the Glove Box, Turn on the Battery, Put back the Fuse Puller and Re-Install the Fuse.
6) Inspection. Turn on the car.. you'll notice on the Dash Display that there is a SRS light illuminated... this tells you that its noticing something wrong with the SRS.. congratulations... you've successfully disconnected the Passenger Airbag.
I disabled the Passenger Airbag on my 2001 Insight instead of adding a costly and (for me) annoying switch. You may decide to install the switch or you may desire to disable the Passenger Airbag itself. Here is what I did should you desire to do the latter.
Disclaimer: I'm telling you what I did; I'm not telling you what you should do. If you decide to do this as well, you should do your own research on how dangerous airbags are and how to avoid injuring yourself or others. You should be prepared to take responsibility for disabling the airbag; there is a risk involved. You shouldn't allow anyone into the passenger seat without warning them that the airbag is disabled.. if you allow them in the seat at all. You should know that if you follow this proceedure the airbag is still there and could still concievably go off.
1) Pull out the fuse. Look in your manual and figure out where the SRS (Safety Restraint System) fuse is in the interior of the car and pull it out. The fusebox you want to find is alongside the wall of the car next to your left drivers leg. Pull out the SRS fuse. You can find the fuse puller in the fuse box under the hood if it won't come out easily. (This step may actually do nothing, but it made me feel better).
2) Disconnect. Open the hood, unscrew the clamps and pull the clamps off the battery and make sure they can't accidently make a connection. I didn't do this because I didn't know about it... but you should! (Someone else posted this about airbags)... As always it's a really really good idea to disconnect the 12 volt battery first for 10 minutes to let the capacitor drain down so there's no chance you accidentally blow it (extremely unlikely anyways). By the time I was ready with step 4, time had expired... but I would suggest you actually count off the 10 minutes.
3) Get Access. Remove the Glove Box. This is minorly of tricky because you think you might break it, but its not that difficult. You need to unscrew the hinges down below, push/pinch in the sides of the back of the Glove Box and lift it off its holding pegs. Tools Needed: Screwdriver.
4) Disconnect. Look in there and you will see a plastic connector harness... trace it back to the airbag to make sure you have the right one. Disconnect. I taped up the ends with electrical tape for added protection. Tools Needed (Optional): Electrical Tape.
5) Clean-Up. Put back the Glove Box, Turn on the Battery, Put back the Fuse Puller and Re-Install the Fuse.
6) Inspection. Turn on the car.. you'll notice on the Dash Display that there is a SRS light illuminated... this tells you that its noticing something wrong with the SRS.. congratulations... you've successfully disconnected the Passenger Airbag.
