Another airbag light on question

Jollyjoiner · Post by **Jollyjoiner** » Mon May 11, 2015 5:48 pm

As the title says, my airbag light came on the other day

Tonight I have taken it to a mate that runs his own garage for him to do a diagnostic check to see any fault codes.
First atempt came up with a left hand knee airbag fault, code 9886 but my car hasn't got knee airbags.
Then it couldn't read the airbag modules again. The reader said there was 5 satellite systems to check but couldn't communicate with any of them.
He tried two snapon testers and both came up with the same thing, not communicating ???

Anyone else had this happen to them ? and do you think it will end up being a trip to my local BMW stealers ?
I'm at a loss with this at the moment

ben g · Post by **ben g** » Mon May 11, 2015 7:33 pm

I would've thought the knee airbag was the one behind the dash.

Stratts · Post by **Stratts** » Mon May 11, 2015 7:37 pm

Someone with the latest INPA software can read the Safety Module for you, which will communicate with the airbags you describe.

Hopefully someone near you can help...

Jollyjoiner · Post by **Jollyjoiner** » Mon May 11, 2015 7:53 pm

Stratts wrote:Someone with the latest INPA software can read the Safety Module for you, which will communicate with the airbags you describe.

Hopefully someone near you can help...

There is a diagnostic place near me, I may need to ask what he has, although my mates snapon one is only about 12 months old

Stratts · Post by **Stratts** » Tue May 12, 2015 12:03 pm

The Safety Module on the E85 is notoriously difficult to access/read. Normal BMWs just have an airbag module, which was easy, but the E85 had something different.

I only managed to connect to mine, and clear the airbag light, once I upgraded some of the software recently. Even newer equipment set up for a standard airbag process on a BMW, may not be able to access the module needed.

If you can get into it, you'll find there are five readable sub-modules - Satellite L and R, Side L & R and Front (or something like that). I'm not sure if they relate to a specific airbag or not, but when I had an issue with my driver's seat, I needed to clear an error on the Satellite R module. Just reading the Safety module itself and clearing all errors didn't resolve it.

If you need screenshots, I can probably do something over the weekend if it's useful.

Jollyjoiner · Post by **Jollyjoiner** » Tue May 12, 2015 5:30 pm

Cheers for that Stratts
My mates did find the sub modules, satellite L and R and so on, I think it found about 5 but only managed to communicate with one which said the left hand knee airbag firing circuit fault, it then couldn't communicate with the others or even that one again which was very strange.
I may need to look to see if there is a indy garage that specialise in BMW's near me that could read it, before going to the BMW main stealers.

Jollyjoiner · Post by **Jollyjoiner** » Tue May 12, 2015 9:02 pm

Anybody in derbyshire or south Yorkshire got reader on their laptop that can read all the satallite airbag modules to fault find and then do a re set.
I could come to yours and bring money or beer for payment

Jollyjoiner · Post by **Jollyjoiner** » Sun May 17, 2015 9:11 pm

No one got a laptop reader that can read the airbags then around Derbyshire or Yorkshire that could help ?

mac27040 · Post by **mac27040** » Tue May 19, 2015 5:05 pm

I'M IN NORTH LEICESTERSHIRE NEAR J23 M1 IF YOU FANCY A DRIVE

Jollyjoiner · Post by **Jollyjoiner** » Tue May 19, 2015 9:44 pm

mac27040 wrote:I'M IN NORTH LEICESTERSHIRE NEAR J23 M1 IF YOU FANCY A DRIVE

Not far from me as I'm only at Juntion 29A M1
I'll PM you later in the week and we'll try and arrange a time/day that suites

Cheers mac

mac27040 · Post by **mac27040** » Tue May 19, 2015 10:15 pm

Ok that's fine

huzargarden · Post by **huzargarden** » Wed Jun 08, 2022 1:02 pm

Old thread, but I might give some light here, as I encountered the same problem after my car passenger footwell was folded (Right hand drive car).

When I was stripping my car to dry the footwell. I found that there are two airbags. One in the door and one located near the flor on the pillar behind the seat.

As my airbag was immersed in a damp carpet I get the 987B and 9886 error codes.

Highwaymanof72 · Post by **Highwaymanof72** » Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:45 pm

Did any of you resolve this?

Ghila36 · Post by **Ghila36** » Thu Dec 08, 2022 1:20 pm

Highwaymanof72 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:45 pm Did any of you resolve this?

I had a similar problem, turned out to be a "rusty connector" to the main air bag module in the centre of the car. Pins on the module all OK.

Z4-forum.com

Z4-forum.com