The seat belt/ airbag light all of a sudden comes on or stay on after starting the car. It stays on and keep on chiming, even though there's no passenger sitting in the passenger side. It kept on ringing the whole drive to work (1 hr) SOOOO ANNOYING. Got to work and turn off the engine for a few minutes and restart and it went away.. a few weeks later it came on again. I just restart and it went away.. and then few days later it come on again.. now my strategy is both seats have to have the seat belt buckled in, wait 3 seconds before you start the engine. and wait 5 seconds until the light went away....seemed to work thus far. Getting very annoyed with it. Wish the SUBARU would recall and fix this!!!! This little annoyance makes me hate the 2011 Outback even though they have been the best car I've had thus far!

How am I suppose to live with this annoying chime for the next 100 K miles????

Even though my car had 10,000 miles on it when I first noticed the problem I am not sure when it started. I am a petite person. 5'3 110lbs. The passenger airbag light will go on and off (just like someone else who previously complained). I will not change position and the light continues to do it. It doesn't flicker, it just randomly changes from on to off. I have taken it to my subaru dealer twice now. The first time they said it needed to be recalibrated. After the second time they are not sure why this is happening or how to fix it. They called the regional engineer guy to help out. Still waiting for a call from him. I was told between 70-90lbs the weight sensor has some trouble sensing a person. I am over that weight requirement so I'm not sure why it won't sense me being in the seat. I am now stuck either driving the vehicle or sitting in the backseat. The dealer told me the airbag is in "proper working order" so if the light is on and we crash then the airbag should deploy. However if the light is off it will not deploy and hopefully I will survive the impact. When I bought the car I was told it has a passenger airbag, well it doesn't for me. That is a misrepresentation of a product. I would never have bought the car if the airbag might or might not work for me. So word of advice...next time you buy a car ask them what the weight limit is for the sensors on the airbag.

This is an issue that is well known. Once you know what to search for it returns several hits on an internet search. The problem definition is: Unless you are mid-sized to large and average and above, weight wise, the passenger seat airbag switch does not register the occupant consistently. This discriminates against a very large number of people in the population. If the airbag system is that problematic, then this becomes a much larger problem. My wife, although 5.4" and 100 lbs, is definitely not child size. If they need to modify the airbag system to account for variations, that's their problem. I was sold a car that has inherent, documented and known to the manufacturer, defects in a federally regulated safety system. The dealer was aware that this could be a problem but did not inform us before the purchase, even though the primary purchaser, my wife, is petite.