Subaru Outback Manuals 2012 Outback Owner's Manual | Page 74

1-50 Seat, seatbelt and SRS airbags
& System operation CAUTION
Do not touch the SRS airbag system components with bare hands right after deployment. Doing so can cause burns because the components can be very hot as a result of deployment.
The SRS airbags can function only when the ignition switch is in the“ ON” position.
When the SRS airbag( s) deploy( s), a sudden, fairly loud inflation noise will be heard and some smoke will be released. These occurrences are a normal result of the deployment. This smoke does not indicate a fire in the vehicle.
! SUBARU advanced frontal airbag operation
1)
Driver’ s side
2)
Passenger’ s side
The SUBARU advanced frontal airbag system is designed to determine the activation or deactivation condition of the front passenger’ s SRS frontal airbag depending on the total load on the front passenger’ s seat monitored by the front passenger’ s occupant detection system weight sensor. For this reason, only the driver’ s SRS frontal airbag may deploy in the event of a collision, but this does not mean failure of the system.
If the front sub sensors inside both front fenders and the impact sensors in the airbag control module detect a predetermined amount of force during a frontal collision, the control module sends signals to the airbag module( s)( only driver’ s module or both driver’ s and front passenger’ s modules) instructing the module( s) to inflate the SRS frontal airbag( s). The driver’ s and front passenger’ s SRS frontal airbags use dual stage inflators. The two inflators of each airbag are triggered either sequentially or simultaneously, depending on the severity of impact in the case of the driver’ s SRS frontal airbag and depending on the severity of impact and the total load on the seat in the case of the front passenger’ s SRS frontal airbag.
After deployment, the SRS airbag immediately starts to deflate so that the driver’ s vision is not obstructed and the driver’ s ability to maintain control of the vehicle is