the proverbial Airbag

[warlock]

glad to see so much interest ...there is no bulb in the later dash boards they is LEDs...I have heard of people cutting across the pcb and then soldering a link across to the side airbag bulb so that they still come on and then go off a friend of mine who is an mot inspector .informs me that the light has to go on and then switch off if it doesnt come on its failed..I could do neither remove or cut across as its the later LED dash ..

[crackpotterpig]

thats just abs............good job!!

[FarmerPug]

I recenlty made up thing that meant 2 bulbs could work from the one slot, so you could get a good bulb that wasnt causing a fault as the power source the other bulb would get its power from that, here the engine management light supplies power to the airbag light, both come on and go out at the same time:

I caused the fire when i left the metal legs on the airbag bulb, the two shorted out and caused the mini fire, just cut off the bulbs legs and tape or blu tack the bulb in place


Its dodgy as hell, and it can set your instrument cluster on fire, but its nice to know it can be done, as for the LED lights in the multiplexed instrument clusters if you had a fine enough soldering iron you might be able to put two small wires to send power to another LED, cut the tracks supplying power to the offending LED and they might work, i dont know how it would cope with the extra current draw but the older bulb cluster worked fine.

[steve_earwig]

If it's diodes then the current draw would be negligible (i.e. almost nothing). As for soldering those SMDs though, steady hand for that I reckon

[crackpotterpig]

too much blutak!!
the mrs 2002 bmw compact has a led dash board i took dash out removed the back and taped over the led has passed 2 mot's since doing this it def doesnt have to follow a sequence
click on the link http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4s05000401.htm

[FarmerPug]

My neighbour has a 1999 renault espace it failed the MOT because the airbag light came up on its dot matrix display, after trying to fix it by soldering wires under the seats, and then using a renault CLIP clone machine, the airbag ECU was not responding,
i removed the seat to get the ECU, pulled it out (it was sitting in a shallow puddle) and looked for a replacement on tinter web, but he discovered with the ECU out the airbag light stayed off, he never did buy an ECU and the car passed the MOT

[steve_earwig]

So if the light stays on it's a fail, but if the light never comes on it's a pass I'll have to try disconnecting the ecu, I hate the damn things and I know one day one's going to break my nose

[lozz]

Some M.o.t testers will fail a car if the light is missing,
Or at least the testers in my area are,they look for the light functioning properly.

[FarmerPug]

The problem with disconnecting it on a 406 is it will turn the light on,
whereas on the espcae its dot matrix display is like the 406's MFD at announcing faults, with the ECU in the espace it flashed up a big airbag symbol for 30secs, with the ecu out it just flashes OK and returns to the time.

[crackpotterpig]

if mot testers are failing it for the light not coming on thats def incorrect standards............it is only abs thats checked for a sequence ie if the abs lamp doesnt come on or stays on to indicate a fault its a mot fail.
Good job its not in lancashire I would have to pay them a visit!!

[steve_earwig]

The problem with disconnecting it on a 406 is it will turn the light on,

Oh I know the 406 puts the light on, I don't know about the other, err, heap. The damn thing has dozens of the things, all just waiting for an excuse to go pop! and injure me

[lozz]

I find the m.o.t testers are all working differently
I've had fails in the past for something as simple as a magic tree air freshener hanging from the rear view
Mirror-they won't remove them. Re book and try again.

I put 6 or 7 in now just to piss them off,


Another thing I've noticed-is I always get advisories for these engine covers being fitted
Most cars I've put in for testing don't have under trays or engine covers.

So yeah a simple missing bulb can fail if you've got mot testers that are
Being %$&?.

[crackpotterpig]

i would advise you to put in a appeal if its a incorrect failure item, all the manuals are available online so you can see yourself what should pass/fail.

[degsy]

Not sure if you've got this fixed now, but I was in the same spot until recently so thought I'd post...

I had the COM2000 replaced, all was well for about 4 months, then spontaneously the airbag warning light on the dash, and the text on the matrix display came up and both stayed on permanently. I read all the advice about the under-seat connectors, checked they were all sound, but to no available. Finally I took off the steering column shroud and found the connector where the orange airbag sensor wires connect to the COM2000. Jiggled this around, forcing it on tighter, and hey presto, warning light issue resolved.

The shroud is a pig to get back on, and needs one of those odd 'star' screwdriver, but this seems to have done the job. Worst thing was fixing it while holding my breath that the airbag didn't fire off in my face!