I always wondered how they worked. Cool video Peter!

Great testing Peter with your new excellent meter! Also, sharp knife can be useful sometimes!

Muchas gracias amigo por compartir su conocimiento. Revisare el estado de los sensores de impacto frontales en mi town country 2005, ya que tengo encendida la luz de airbag. Te mando un abrazo desde chile.

Best way to test the sensor is to plug into the air bag controller. It runs several diagnostics including digital communication that can't be diagnosed with a multimeter. There are many ways an acceleration sensor can fail and still show an acceptable resistance.

Thanks for sharing. But, OL means open loop (infinite resistance) Not Zero resistance. This test will not work for modern impact sensors. They have a small circuit board which holds on it an IC and some transistors.

Thanks man. I’m Brazilian and your video will help me so much! Sorry my bad english! Bye

muito bom, very good Peter

Thank you , I am gonna test the sensor on my Chevy Express 2010

Such creativity is needed in Cameroon

Welcome, can I ask for your help to explain to me the malfunction code B1334 for 2012 Kia Cerato

Hello brother why you keep saying its 0 ohm while the leads are not connected to anything. You should have said high impedance. Thank you for your video

If all sensors were like that, they shouldn't need replacement. Nothing can go wrong with it. It has 2 resistors on the little circuit board, probably just to limit the current to the airbag control module when it sends the crash signal from those copper tabs that momentarily touch together upon impact. The only other possibility I see is that it is made so a resistor blows, necessitating a replacement sensor. If the value of the blown resistor is known perhaps it could simply be replaced.

I have a question. I just found out my side impact sensor is damage on my nissan pathfinder 2012. So i removed it. If i put back the battery connection. Will the airbag deploy?

Peter Do you work as car repair guy in some car service? Or you do this as a hobby in your garage?

If the mechanism of the sensor is similar,then can I substitute for other sensors,? For example, replacing bmw sensor with chevy sedans?

been awhile but off the top of my head, fairly sure safety circuit/check/arming circuit sends a voltage and it uses an PNP transisor, the arming circuit gives P to the transistor and then the initiating circuit uses the p and n when it deploys, could be wrong though

How did you determine that the sensor had to be tested in the first place?

On the first sensor since the wires weren’t color coded how did you know which one positive?

Ol means no continuity. Also know as a open load. That is not the same as no resistance .

"0L" means "open line" anyway thank you for the video

Found the answer to my question "why is the good senor have resistance, but the bad one OL?" Answer; There is a TEST RESISTOR on the circuit board so one can test the sensor. After activation, the resistor is somehow bypassed (Not sure how).

How to know negative and positive wire?

how test shiled air bag

OL= open loop

Two! Two sensors! Ha. Ha. Ha.

The connector could be bad and not the sensor. Test the sensor when it is disconnected from the connector.

OL is not zero it is Open lead meaning resistance is too high to read or open

Viewer beware...I found this "How To" to be completely misleading, in my case anyway. I replaced a door on a 2012 Fiat 500 with a salvage door from same year and model. The airbag sensor in replacment door was incompatible and caused "Airbag Failure warning" on the dashboard. Tested it with Ohm meter and it showed "OL" open loop, which this video inicates as "BAD." then I checked the sensor from the old damaged door, it too indicated "OL"..."BAD" WTF! Neither door had been involved in an airbag deployment situation, Did I somehow damage them? So do I try to find a new replacement sensor with the correct part number @ $40-60 and shipping delay? Finally after much internet searching (and soul searching) I just removed the original door's sensor and stuck it into the circuit, and instant cure, no airbag warning. So I believe the info in this video was, in this case, WRONG. "OL" appears to be the normal "Good" reading. Also this is one of many videos describing "how a sensor works'' showing a tiny hammer-like swinging part which causes a momentary contact of two copper blades etc.Well, NOT NECESSARILY. My Fiat's door sensor is an air pressure type sensor, I figured this out myself and finally had it confirmed in a Fiat parts diagram. Apparently, a sudden door impact causes a momentary increase in pressure inside the door and the puff of air causes contacts inside the switch to momentarily close. So... if I hadn't seen the video I probably would have saved myself considerable head scratching and self doubt, and a couple of days delay in finishing the job. A learning experience for this amateur mechanic! Your results may vary, who knows?