Baby seats/Child seats in rear seats FL A/S8
 

Hi.

I have a rear faced seat in the back of the S8. The rear seats are marked with Airbags on the sides and from my first point of view thats a good thing. But when we went to the dealer to have a look at a new Passat for the wife they insisted on NOT ordering the side airbags for the rear seats since that could cause more damage to the kid in the baby/Child seat..

Anyone here got an opinion on that? I can def see the problem with a airbag exploding into the seat..

Could it be disconnected maybe?

Thanks :)

Can be disconnected and coded out fairly easily iirc.

The later FL cars have the airbag 8 module (8 airbags) and coding can switch various ones on and off....

Probably a good idea to have it switched off with a rear facing child seat....

Thank you for the reply.
Mine is an early FL (built 10/99 reg 01/00)

Any clue where in vag-com this can be done ?

I recall reading a procedure for this in elsa-win but I'm not convinced its necessary, especially with kids in child seats. Maybe more of a risk if they aren't in child seats and tend to sleep with heads against the door

Given these are side bags the risk of injury from a deploying airbag is no more than the risk of a very serious head injury in a side impact or from a deploying curtain bag coming down from the roof

You have to draw a line on risk somewhere and I'd generally rather have an airbag than not, especially in a side impact where there's not much structure to protect you in the first place. Only bag I'd live without is front passenger as its pretty much pointless.

Airbags used to be my policy responsibility at work, as were child seats, when I worked in vehicle safety

I have 8 bags in the s8 and all are active for my son in both his old Cabriofix and current priorifix isofix seats

Adrian