[brgelise]

Considering at trACK i'M IN HARNESSES SO WHO CARES...
#2 wIFE IS 90LBS SOAKING WET SO AIRBAGS ALWAYS DEACTIVATE FOR HER...gOT THIS SCENARIO FIGURED OUT. sTILL JUST HINK ITS A FAULTTHAT DOESN'T CLEAR WITHOUT THE READER. mINE HAS BEEN ON AND OFF FOR YEARS ALSO...i THINK...BEAUTYi HATE CAPS LOCK BUTTON

 

[ByJoveByJingle]

Given the prevalence of the error code and 0 reported instances of an airbag not inflating during an accident, I’m going to imagine that the error code caused by battery or other voltage issues has no impact on the ability for the airbag to deploy. The real problem Is the “cry wolf” syndrome that it engenders—if there is an actual problem with the airbag, we’ll never know because we all assume it’s the standard Evora gremlin. On my 2017, I had no airbag light problems until the car was repaired from pack rat damage. Then the light came on as I drove back to Tucson from Las Vegas. I’ve since had it checked out in Phoenix when I had it serviced at a Lotus certified repair center. Light was cleared. Came back on during the drive home to Tucson. Annoying. But I’m not going to spend a moment worrying about safety issues.

 

[Drftfan]

It absolutely can be your battery. I work in the auto industry and set up dealerships with lot management along with insight into a vehicles health. Part of this has to do with setting up daily reports for low battery voltage. A fully charged battery is 12.6v. Not 12v that is commonly thought. Once a battery drops below 11.6 permanent damage starts on that battery. Age isn’t a good indicator of a batteries health. If that battery was allowed to die or sit in a low state for too long then the battery will have permanent damage. The only way to know for sure is to have a battery load test conducted.
A large dealer group we service was going through $750,000 worth of batteries every single year on brand new cars because they simply get neglected. I have observed brand new Lotuses sitting at a SoCal dealership without battery tenders on them. Pretty common knowledge that these cars will run their batteries down no matter the year as do a lot of other cars nowadays. How often are those batteries being replaced? Probably not very often. So they get charged up but still have damage.
Have a load test done if you can.

 

[exigegus]

Went to look at SUVs in 2007 and could not test drive the Chevy because the battery was dead. Bought an Xterra. That chevy dealership is now a housing development

 

[Kubera]

Change the battery and that is one less thing to worry about. Hopefully that will fix your problem!

 

[TNEngineer]

Yep, not a fan of going through the whole "ECU must re-learn the engine" thing when the battery is removed, but I think I'll take it out and have it load tested. Honestly, I suspect it will be fine since the engine cranks hard every single time even after sitting for a couple of days. And in the case of the DMV, it had been running for ~45 minutes on the drive to the DMV so it had just gotten a "fresh charge" (so to speak) and the engine absolutely roared to life when I started it in the DMV parking lot. We will see....

 

[exigegus]

anybody try those cigarette lighter voltage maintainers or some homebrew solution to that?
seems someth9ing I would want to own if I had and Evora

 

[agentdr8]

I think the only socket that's wired hot is the one in the trunk. And if you're going to use that, you might as well just hook up your battery tender directly.

Sherman's external magnetic connector is a great solution that reduces wear and tear on the trunk latch solenoid and it disconnects itself without damage if you happen to forget to disconnect before you drive off. One of these days I'll get around to installing one.

 

[TNEngineer]

Electrically the cigarette lighter would be fine for the current levels involved, but as agentdr8 points out you need an always-on socket.

And in case you don't know: Lotus ships Evoras with a Lotus-branded Battery Tender and its pigtail is already installed on the battery! So you already have everything you need. I'm actually impressed with that... not with the quiescent current draw of the Evora's electrical system (there's simply no excuse for that in today's electronic era), but if they're not going to cure the disease at least they gave you a fix for its symptom.

I really like Sherman's magnetic solution and even have a plan how I'll install it on my Evora GT without creating holes in permanent places. A future project....

 

[whowasat]

Don't ignore or tape over the airbag light. It is my understanding that when it is lit, the airbags are non-functional.

 

[ByJoveByJingle]

Don't ignore or tape over the airbag light. It is my understanding that when it is lit, the airbags are non-functional.

I need more context. What gives you this understanding? I just can’t believe this is true. When 50% of your automobiles (spitballing here, of course) are driving around with an airbag light on, it’s just hard to imagine that a company’s lawyers could think this isn‘t an existential liability risk to the company if any of those cars are in an accident and the airbags don’t deploy.

 

[agentdr8]

This is what the service notes state:

 

[ByJoveByJingle]

This is what the service notes state:

View attachment 1268869

I would defer to your knowledge about these kinds of things. But here is my interpretation of this whole cockup: What is in the service notes is how the airbag tell-tale light should function and is its purpose. But that’s not how it is functioning. There is some electrical gremlin that is causing this light to activate on a large portion of Evoras in the wild. The light itself is obviously not going to cause the airbag to not deploy—it’s meant to indicate some underlying problem that might do so. Instead, it’s coming on because of a low-voltage trigger and/or random Lotus electrical nonsense.

The only way we will ever know, if only anecdotally, is if we can get somebody who has been in an accident with the airbag light on to tell us whether the airbag deployed or not. Of course that doesn‘t mean that it always will deploy just because of one case, but at least it would be a real world piece of evidence. I stand by my earlier reasoning—we have not heard any testimonials of airbags not deploying in 10 years, despite loads of evidence of airbag lights on many cars. We’ve also not heard any examples of Evoras having an airbag inflate without warning. In the absence of any better evidence, I’m not going to worry about the tell-tale light.

 

[agentdr8]

I agree with your assessment as well. I was just posting the verbatim from "the horse's mouth" so to speak.

As for voltage issues, the light is supposed to exhibit a different behavior:

 

[TNEngineer]

As for voltage issues, the light is supposed to exhibit a different behavior

Correct. I mentioned this (and quoted the docs) in an earlier message in this thread, to say the same thing. Voltage related indications are supposed to be transitory, with the light going off once normal voltage is restored.

The scary part is that the Lotus Tech and Service Rep did not seem to understand that. It was their opinion (over the phone) that the airbag tell-tale light was indicating a low voltage situation, and that it would remain until the Lotus software was used to clear it even if the low voltage condition was rectified (pun intended!). The docs above explicitly contradict that. However, docs have been wrong before and the folks with their hands on the equipment often know what's true in the real world so I'm stopping short of saying they're misinformed.

 

[agentdr8]

even if the low voltage condition was rectified (pun intended!).

Lol

The docs above explicitly contradict that. However, docs have been wrong before and the folks with their hands on the equipment often know what's true in the real world so I'm stopping short of saying they're misinformed.

Yep, I don't disagree with this either. But as far as I can recall, no one has ever had the light extinguish itself after resolving a low voltage condition.

 

[whowasat]

Because so many of us have dealt with airbag lights, I reached out to Dave Simkin, National Technical Manager, Lotus Cars USA. Below are his two replies, verbatim, reacting to the original post in this thread. Helpful information. Bold accenting is mine:

First reply:
It is most likely the seat airbag resistance reading high. GM suffers with the same concern to the point they eliminate the connector and hardwire the seat bag. We do not condone this and cleaning / Resecuring the connector will take care of it. We do put additional fixings to eliminate the possibility of the connector moving when the seat is moved back and forth on the runners. The connector itself has a specific way it is released and I can email that to you tomorrow. Once the resistance is corrected the light should go out. While the light is illuminated the SRS system is inoperative

David Simkin
NATIONAL TECHNICAL MANAGER – LOTUS CARS USA

Dale:
Attached is info on releasing the SRS seat connector. The connector also has what appears to be a red locking clip, DO NOT TRY TO REMOVE THIS as irreparable damage will occur resulting in the need for either a seat or main harness replacement.

pdf attachment below:

 

[brgelise]

So after all this time and considering it happens to damn near every Evora, you'd think they would mail us the directions to disconnect , reconnect the connector........Maybe GM had it right because a non functional airbag due to a defect in a connector sets up Lotus for a BIG liable lawsuit if someone gets killed. Bottom line, the system is too complicated for its own good.

 

[ByJoveByJingle]

Even that doesn’t make sense to me. So are the seat airbags inoperable, or a fault anywhere in the SRS makes ALL airbags inoperable? Why would they do that?

 

[TNEngineer]

That kind of connector can be designed to be "self wiping", in the sense that disconnection and reconnection causes each contact to wipe its counterpart in the other housing. However, this is generally only required after years of service or use in a poor environment (like on a boat in saltwater). I'm surprised this happened on my brand new Evora GT, whose build date is within the last 12 months.

I'll dig into the docs and see what is involved in releasing the seats from the floor. This would be a far better fix than a 700 mile round trip to the dealer.

Thank you so much for the authoritative data! Nice to have a contact at Lotus USA, please pass on my thanks to him as well.

EDIT: I've reviewed the docs. Each seat is held in place by four hex head bolts, which get retightened to 30NM upon reinstallation. I'm hoping to give this a shot later today and will report back.