Airbag light on - Have you been affected? (UK)
- Thread starter sp3ctre
- Start date
Yep,
I have the same prob on my 2003 3.0L. Been into BMW about 4 times now for a reset, then the light just comes straight back on again. One time it stayed off for a day then came back on. They were scratching their heads about it and have no idea what it is. Their solution was, 'well you could try and new control module, but after its been recoded, you will be looking at around £200+' not the awnswer I was looking for!
I have the same prob on my 2003 3.0L. Been into BMW about 4 times now for a reset, then the light just comes straight back on again. One time it stayed off for a day then came back on. They were scratching their heads about it and have no idea what it is. Their solution was, 'well you could try and new control module, but after its been recoded, you will be looking at around £200+' not the awnswer I was looking for!
A
Anonymous
Guest
Alex -
It could well be a problem with the airbag seat sensor that detects the amount of weight in the passenger seat. That sensor seems to be the source of a lot of trouble. As you may have read above, BMW N.America has extended the warranty on that part. Sorry, I don't know if the same is true in the UK. Good luck!
Brian
It could well be a problem with the airbag seat sensor that detects the amount of weight in the passenger seat. That sensor seems to be the source of a lot of trouble. As you may have read above, BMW N.America has extended the warranty on that part. Sorry, I don't know if the same is true in the UK. Good luck!
Brian
Hi, I'm using Atlas in Sheriff Hutton. He first diagnosed the RH B Pillar sensor, and relieved me of £115 for checking the wiring and the diagnosis. I sent the ECU to airbags for sale who charged me £70 to 'repair' it. Refitted the unit and still had the light, leading me to believe that this unit was not the problem. Further diagnosis by Atlas revealed that neither the LH B Pillar nor the centre ECU were communicating. Removed the centre ECU to find corroded terminals and brown staining. Looks as though someone spilled a coffee down the rear compartment! Cleaned the terminals using bicarb and contact cleaner to no avail. Still waiting for a price from Airbags for Sale to fix it. A new ECU is £278 from BMW. £200 down and still not fixed!sp3ctre said:
My car had its Inspection II at BMW on Friday. Came to use the car today for the commute to work and the airbag light stayed permanently on. I've got an appointment for them to try and fix it on Wednesday afternoon. No way am I going to be paying for something that's been perfect for 7/8 months of ownership and suddenly goes wrong the very first drive after its visited the dealership, though!
Unsurprisingly, the dealers said there was "no way" they could have caused the problem. They say they "can't reset it" and an electrical fault means the whole airbag control system thingymajig needs replacing, cost - £550 odd. I have a warranty (with a £250 excess :x) which would cover it, but I really don't want to!
Am I being taken for a ride? I had 9,000 miles of trouble free motoring from July to last week and then this light appears the very next time I drive it after it has visited a main dealer.
Angry!
Worth contacting BMW UK?
Am I being taken for a ride? I had 9,000 miles of trouble free motoring from July to last week and then this light appears the very next time I drive it after it has visited a main dealer.
Angry!
Worth contacting BMW UK?
m44rrt said:Has anyone found a fix / workaround for airbag light coming on
Any time I have a passenger, after about 20 mins the airbag light comes on
I then take it to my indy to get it reset, but this is a real pain long term
Whats the latest on this issue?
AFAIK the issue is usually the passenger seat sensor. A few people have had other issues but from what you describe yours sounds like the seat sensor. Not sure what the cost of replacement at an Indi is. My airbag light is currently on too, although it came on when I had a passenger so I expect I have the same problem.
After doing some checking on my car tonight, the seat sensors as a whole seem to have intermittency issues.
My temp sensors for instance have logged 15 faults on my side, and 1 on the passenger side, since I reset the lot about a month ago... that probably ties in nicely with the usage of driver/passenger seats...!? Obviously this doesn't log a proper fault but it's a sign that the connections are not always perfect.
Personally I'll be looking very closely at the loomage underneath on next seat removal/refit, because I think that they can easily pull/stretch a bit when you move the seats around if they are not perfect. I'll certainly be making sure those wires that run up the back of the seat base into the pad have plenty of slack...
It's likely that wires and plugs can slowly work lose/move as the seats move over the years.
Just as a random fact, while I was messing in the memory of the car, I've made 257,000+ brake light activations since the car was new, with 20% more right hand indicator activations than left
Some of the info stored is really quite interesting, and/or useful!
Dave
My temp sensors for instance have logged 15 faults on my side, and 1 on the passenger side, since I reset the lot about a month ago... that probably ties in nicely with the usage of driver/passenger seats...!? Obviously this doesn't log a proper fault but it's a sign that the connections are not always perfect.
Personally I'll be looking very closely at the loomage underneath on next seat removal/refit, because I think that they can easily pull/stretch a bit when you move the seats around if they are not perfect. I'll certainly be making sure those wires that run up the back of the seat base into the pad have plenty of slack...
It's likely that wires and plugs can slowly work lose/move as the seats move over the years.
Just as a random fact, while I was messing in the memory of the car, I've made 257,000+ brake light activations since the car was new, with 20% more right hand indicator activations than left
Some of the info stored is really quite interesting, and/or useful!
Dave
m44rrt said:Has anyone found a fix / workaround for airbag light coming on
Any time I have a passenger, after about 20 mins the airbag light comes on
I then take it to my indy to get it reset, but this is a real pain long term
Whats the latest on this issue?
Just to add, my pretensioner wire (drivers side) has a broken plug onto the pyrotechnic bit, and so that is logging a fault. I also have an intermittent throw up code for the passenger occupancy (very rare)
In either case, my passenger occupancy works fine in all tests I've done with luggage on seat/seatbelt on/off, AND the realtime readout of occupancy on the laptop, and all the diagnostic readouts show the full system priming and ready for firing on my car (ie, airbags, tensioners etc)... so from a safety POV, I think the car is determining the conditions still, it's just when it's intermittent on the occupancy sensor (ie, maybe once in a blue moon) it's logging the code.
I'll get to the bottom of it with mine I hope, but I know it's really working. The main thing I need to fix first is the pre-tensioner wire but it's a seat-out job to swap the bit of loomage needed. Once that is done then fingers crossed my light will go out, and only pop back up when the occupancy sensor has a bad day
Dave
I guess they are just third party sensors that work a bit better than BMW's effort, but also have code clearing capability.
As per airbag detonation and those silly adverts, ALL airbags are active and ready to fire even with many faults, if things are sensed to be not working right, the SIM will arm and attempt to fire everything if needed even if it knows it might not go off. Safety first and all that.
The occupancy pad ONLY exists to prevent an airbag going off when it doesn't need to. Why blow another pair of dash/door bags if there is no one sat there? The occupancy pad turns off airbags on the passenger side only.
Dave
As per airbag detonation and those silly adverts, ALL airbags are active and ready to fire even with many faults, if things are sensed to be not working right, the SIM will arm and attempt to fire everything if needed even if it knows it might not go off. Safety first and all that.
The occupancy pad ONLY exists to prevent an airbag going off when it doesn't need to. Why blow another pair of dash/door bags if there is no one sat there? The occupancy pad turns off airbags on the passenger side only.
Dave
Hi, i have a Z4 coupe, i was driving along the other day and my airbag light came on. I have just been to get it reset today from a local indy who charged me a tenner. The car has been driven for the past 45 mins and not returned the fault, so fingers crossed. However the fault code was 93A8- drivers airbag warning. ? Any ideas anyone i cant find the code anywhere ?
Cheers
Chris
Cheers
Chris
My airbag light was permanently on for about 8 months. I took the car for an MOT at a local garage and they gave the car the MOT and tried to clear the light with three different computers but each was unsuccessful. I rang BMW and they wanted £100 just to do a diagnostics check on the car which would tell me the problem not fix it, i would then have to pay extra to fix the problem.
Instead I took the car to a private garage who specialised in BMW's he hooked it up to his computer and cleared the alarm with no problems. He said the computer read 'Right post failure' not sure what this means. It thought the problem would be the connection under the passenger seat as judging from this forum that problem is common.
I spoke to the guy at this garage and he said it is common for most BMW's to have problems with a loom under the passenger seat which carries the airbag sensor. Normally to fix this they remove the seat and replace the loom which is a 3 hour job plus parts. Thankfully they managed to clear the light with the computer and no work needed to be done. After all this it cost me £10 for this bloke to clear it so i'm well chuffed. Was expecting it to be a lot more expensive. If anybody lives near Lincolnshire in England let me know and i can give you the address of the garage and see if it works for you.
Hope this helps!!
Instead I took the car to a private garage who specialised in BMW's he hooked it up to his computer and cleared the alarm with no problems. He said the computer read 'Right post failure' not sure what this means. It thought the problem would be the connection under the passenger seat as judging from this forum that problem is common.
I spoke to the guy at this garage and he said it is common for most BMW's to have problems with a loom under the passenger seat which carries the airbag sensor. Normally to fix this they remove the seat and replace the loom which is a 3 hour job plus parts. Thankfully they managed to clear the light with the computer and no work needed to be done. After all this it cost me £10 for this bloke to clear it so i'm well chuffed. Was expecting it to be a lot more expensive. If anybody lives near Lincolnshire in England let me know and i can give you the address of the garage and see if it works for you.
Hope this helps!!
I managed to get mine off but it cost a small fortune.
I started at RW Weaver in Glasgow(even though it's not THAT local for me) - told to bring the car in and he'd do it on the spot, no appointment and for no charge. Got the light off and it was fine for a few weeks. I'd recommend Weavers despite the problem reoccurring - they were great to deal with.
I then tried a local garage(not BMW specialist) and they cleared it using their diagnostic machine for £40. It perfect until the next day so switching the engine off and back on resulted in the light staying on again.
I then went to BMW for a diagnostic who charged, rather surprisingly, the same price of £40.
However, they found a fault that the previous diagnostic missed - a faulty satellite sensor. Cost to repair???....£280.
Normally I'd have said thanks but no thanks....but at the time I was trying to sell the car and had little choice so I paid the money and got the sensor replaced sometime around early November 09.
The light has since stayed off but it cost me over £350 in total for the 2 diagnostics and for the part to be supplied and fitted.
I started at RW Weaver in Glasgow(even though it's not THAT local for me) - told to bring the car in and he'd do it on the spot, no appointment and for no charge. Got the light off and it was fine for a few weeks. I'd recommend Weavers despite the problem reoccurring - they were great to deal with.
I then tried a local garage(not BMW specialist) and they cleared it using their diagnostic machine for £40. It perfect until the next day so switching the engine off and back on resulted in the light staying on again.
I then went to BMW for a diagnostic who charged, rather surprisingly, the same price of £40.
However, they found a fault that the previous diagnostic missed - a faulty satellite sensor. Cost to repair???....£280.
Normally I'd have said thanks but no thanks....but at the time I was trying to sell the car and had little choice so I paid the money and got the sensor replaced sometime around early November 09.
The light has since stayed off but it cost me over £350 in total for the 2 diagnostics and for the part to be supplied and fitted.
I am just bought one of these seat occupancy fix devices from ebay - from The BMW Workshop
The wire from the seat sensor is plugged into this new device when sends a constant stream of 'seat occupied by a big person (ie not a child)'
This should register OK for airbags and so no light
After having a reset a week or so ago - and no weight on the seat, voila it reappears today -
Me thinks, a final act of air bag defiance before I blast it with my occupancy bypass unit! :evil:
I will keep you posted...
The wire from the seat sensor is plugged into this new device when sends a constant stream of 'seat occupied by a big person (ie not a child)'
This should register OK for airbags and so no light
After having a reset a week or so ago - and no weight on the seat, voila it reappears today -
Me thinks, a final act of air bag defiance before I blast it with my occupancy bypass unit! :evil:
I will keep you posted...
It seems like a big load of crap doesn't it.
If the seat isn't occupied then it saves you a door airbag and a dash airbag deploying in a crash, but to be honest if airbags go off then chances are the claim is going to be fairly large anyway.
Part of me gets the reason for having it, but another part makes me wonder why bother...
As said earlier, the most frustrating part is that the sensor has an intermittent fault, but won't self-clear after a few correct activations... thus leaving you not knowing if you have a serious fault or a silly intermittent niggle that isn't there any more
Interestingly, it may well be that the issue is the loom between the under-seat plug and the pillar satellite, because BMW seem to stock these cables as replacements... my car had one in there when I started swapping seats, so perhaps the cable is known to fail or become temperamental when the seat is moved around etc?!
Dave
If the seat isn't occupied then it saves you a door airbag and a dash airbag deploying in a crash, but to be honest if airbags go off then chances are the claim is going to be fairly large anyway.
Part of me gets the reason for having it, but another part makes me wonder why bother...
As said earlier, the most frustrating part is that the sensor has an intermittent fault, but won't self-clear after a few correct activations... thus leaving you not knowing if you have a serious fault or a silly intermittent niggle that isn't there any more
Interestingly, it may well be that the issue is the loom between the under-seat plug and the pillar satellite, because BMW seem to stock these cables as replacements... my car had one in there when I started swapping seats, so perhaps the cable is known to fail or become temperamental when the seat is moved around etc?!
Dave
The sensor bypass instructions and picture did not match the underside of my passeger seat
Spoke to the guy at The BMW Workshop
I explained that my seats were from an 07 car (facelifted)
The kit only works for prefacelift seats
OK
Plan B
Accept I don't have passenger airbags - hardly ever have passengers in this car
Get black electrical tape
Cut small square
Stick it over the red airpbag light
Problem fixed...
Spoke to the guy at The BMW Workshop
I explained that my seats were from an 07 car (facelifted)
The kit only works for prefacelift seats
OK
Plan B
Accept I don't have passenger airbags - hardly ever have passengers in this car
Get black electrical tape
Cut small square
Stick it over the red airpbag light
Problem fixed...