B0016 points at the left roof rail airbag deployment loop on GM vehicles, which is the driver side curtain airbag that lives above the door in the headliner. The SDM watches that circuit for continuity and for shorts, and it sets B0016 when the readings fall outside the range GM specifies. It is a wiring and connector code far more often than a bad curtain.
The roof rail airbag runs the length of the headliner and inflates down over the side windows in a side impact or a rollover. Its firing circuit starts at the SDM, travels through the floor and pillar harness, and terminates at the initiator at one end of the curtain. On vehicles with a longer curtain or a second initiator, GM words the descriptor as Left Roof Rail Initiator 1 Deployment Loop.
GM publishes the thresholds, and they are tight. On a 2008 full size truck the SDM logs a fault when loop resistance runs above 3.9 ohms or below 1.1 ohms for 120 milliseconds. On a 2013 crossover the limits are 4.2 ohms and 1.4 ohms held for 2 seconds. A connector that is a little corroded or a terminal that has backed out is enough to cross those lines.
Symptom bytes follow the same pattern as the other GM loops, with 01 for short to battery, 02 for short to ground, 04 for open, 0D for high resistance, and 0E for low resistance. B0023 is the same code for the right roof rail.
Circuit. B0016 describes the state of a wire pair, and the SDM keeps reporting it until the wire pair reads correctly. On a vehicle that rolled or took a side hit, the deployed curtain will read open and the module will also hold a crash record, so the two show up together. Repairing the curtain circuit and clearing the module are separate jobs, in that order.
No. A reset restores what the module has in memory and has no effect on a connector at the pillar. Fix the circuit, and if nothing else is stored the light goes out. When the curtain itself was deployed, it has to be replaced with a matching roof rail airbag before the module goes back in, and then the locked module needs an airbag module reset to clear the crash data.
The left roof rail wording comes from GM service information for Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, Cadillac, and Pontiac vehicles built roughly from 2007 onward, including the full size trucks and the crossovers. Older GM SIR references assign some numbers in this range differently, so on an early 2000s vehicle check the code against that model's own service data instead of assuming. Several import brands also use B0016 for circuits that have nothing to do with a curtain airbag.
Start at the pillar connector on the driver side, not at the curtain. Pull the lower trim, unlock the CPA, and inspect the terminals for spread, green corrosion, or a bar that is bridging the two circuits. Reseat it fully and recheck the loop parameters on a scan tool.
If the right side is logging B0022 or B0023 at the same time, look at the common harness or the SDM connector rather than two separate curtains. A vehicle that shows this code with no accident history almost always has a connection problem someone created during interior work.
Related codes: B0021, B0022, B0086
Keep reading:
Code scope: Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, Buick. The same number can mean something different on another manufacturer, so match the code to your make before you act on it.
A reset clears stored crash data. A replacement part fixes a hardware fault. We have read these codes since the nineties and will tell you which one you are looking at.
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