Safety Belt Tension Sensor
WARNING: This page is about a different car, the 2005 Mercury Montego, 2005 Ford Freestyle, and 2005 Ford Five Hundred. However, it is still accessible from the selected car via links, so may be relevant.
The safety belt tension sensor:
- is part of the front outboard passenger safety belt retractor assembly.
- is located at the safety belt anchor point on the passenger seat.
- is used in conjunction with the occupant classification sensor (OCS) system.
- is a 3-wire Hall-effect sensor that is part of the front passenger safety belt and retractor assembly.
The safety belt tension sensor is used by the OCS system to identify the presence of a child safety seat on the front outboard passenger seat. The safety belt tension sensor senses the tension on the safety belt assembly then provides an output to the OCS system electronic control unit (ECU), indicating that the safety belt assembly is cinched. After sensing the weight applied to the seat by the occupant and using the safety belt tension sensor input, the OCS system determines how the occupant should be classified and communicates this information to the restraints control module (RCM). If the occupant is classified to be a child, the RCM will then automatically deactivate the passenger air bag module.