I just wanted to document my experiences for those who might run into the same problem down the road. I was out of the country for 5 weeks where my Acura 1.7 EL (glorified civic) was parked the entire time. 5 weeks later when i got back into my car, the SRS light comes on. Did my initial research to discover that a very common cause for this was a defective seatbelt buckle. Not thinking it was anything serious, i continued driving the car for the next 2 weeks. During this time, i would notice the SRS light would sometimes turn off momentarily at stop lights. One night, i noticed there was a slight flickering of the cabin light, dash, and the DRL and that is when it triggered a light bulb in my head. Did more research and it turns out that if the regulator inside the alternator was malfunctioning, it will generate incorrect voltage levels resulting in incorrect charge to the airbag sensor tripping the SRS light. Sure enough when i tested my alternator, it was putting out 17.5 volts!!! Swapped out the alternator and everything is back to normal. I am hoping this will help someone with the same problem.

 

any time the alt put out over 16v i believe it will trigger the srs,abs,brakeand or tcs light to come on. this will happen to all hondas