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Post by grubsflow on May 8, 2018 0:57:58 GMT
On NAR vehicles, there is no switch to switch off the front passenger airbag. Instead, the airbag system relies on occupancy sensors. When the seat is not occupied, the Airbag Off light above the 4-way flashers glows bright yellow and does not shut off. Worse, it does not dim when the lights are turned on. As far as I know, no one has identified a leuchte channel for this light. I searched, and could not find one. I also searched the Airbag module, and could not find an adaptation for this. Any clues out there?
Happy to provide an admap for both Central Electrics and Airbag modules.
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Post by timteichman on Apr 18, 2021 16:58:21 GMT
I too want to figure this out. If there's no software setting, maybe I'll unplug it. I don't really care if the airbag is off or on (why would I?) and have no control anyway over it.
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Post by lovic87 on Apr 30, 2021 23:48:19 GMT
I managed to dim the hazard light a long time ago, but the only way I could do anything with that airbag light was to take black marker to the inside of it.
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Post by dv52 (Australia) on May 1, 2021 20:16:33 GMT
I too want to figure this out. If there's no software setting, maybe I'll unplug it. I don't really care if the airbag is off or on (why would I?) and have no control anyway over it. tim: Of course as an Antipodean I'm only guessing about the practices on North American Region (NAR) cars, but given the safety aspects of the airbag light, I would think that it would definitely be a monitored circuit/LED. This means that "unplugging it" would throw-up an error message on the dash and also on the OBD11 report.
Don
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Post by vwjap on May 2, 2021 8:48:49 GMT
It sure does,
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Post by newty on May 9, 2021 9:37:14 GMT
Yep. Unplugging the Airbag off Light will throw an Airbag-Error, which has to be cleared afterwards.
Quite sure this has to be coded in 08 ECU. But there are no labels at all for it. I do not know if somebody is able to point out the exact Bit for this by comparing EUR and NAR codings.
Please keep in mind that you tampering with most sensitive ECU in the car . Thats why there are no labels coming from VW. You will not know that something is coded odd until you are getting punched by a bag of air in the face while safely driving or eating the dashboard when you crash. My suggestion would be to short circuit the occupancy sensor or to provide matching resistance as if occupied.
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Post by dv52 (Australia) on May 10, 2021 9:13:05 GMT
........... and to add to newty comment about the possible impact of tinkering with the "most sensitive module in the car" - also bear in mind that there could be a more immediate impact - playing with the coding on the air-bag module may render the vehicle inoperative if the change is viewed by the module as a collision (notwithstanding that a crash has not occurred). If this happens - the cost to make the car operational again could be expensive! Don PS: Also, be aware that the igniters on these are-bags are pyrotechnic devices- which can go "BANG" in a big way!!
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Post by lavaine on Jun 2, 2021 16:25:34 GMT
Just get a Badgeskin to cover the airbag light. A perfect low-tech solution.
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Post by timteichman on Dec 6, 2021 22:49:45 GMT
Yep. Unplugging the Airbag off Light will throw an Airbag-Error, which has to be cleared afterwards. It's actually a little worse than that, I figured out. I decided to pull the hazard switch and try to figure out how it was put together. Once I did I had the bright idea to try to plug the LED sub-assembly within the switch housing in up-side down, and if I'd succeeded then the LED's would have been shining into a black ABS cave within the switch housing which would have solved it for me. However, naturally the Germans made the assembly in a way to make it near-impossible to do this. So I decided I'd whittle away at the plastic connector until I'd removed all of the excess plastic that kept it from going in up-side down. A perfect plan. Except that in the process I managed to damage the little circuit board that not only lights up the diodes but also tells the computer they're lit. As a result I got a fault, the airbag warning light lit up, and it was impossible to clear the fault as it would just come right back with an error that indicated the warning light had a faulty ground. Which it did because that's what I managed to trash.
I didn't quite know what I did and I was taking the car to the dealer for a recall in any case, and they confirmed the faulty ground issue was caused because the switch was broken. I ordered a new switch for $85.
When the switch arrived from Germany, I plugged it in and cleared the airbag fault and it stayed cleared. And the light was back.
In the mean time I had hatched a new plan which worked perfectly. All that is required is careful work:
- First, remove the switch from the dash. To remove it, just grab it along the left and right edge and pull. It snaps right out. Then carefully figure out how the connectors work (they have little locks you can release with a tiny screwdriver) and disconnect the switch. Note that if you do this with the car off and finish the job before you turn it on, you won't create a fault as the car will never know you did it.
- Next, optionally, remove the hazard button sub-assembly (#1 in the image below.) It oddly comes out the front of the assembly. It's held in place by some rather easy to defeat clips.
- Next, carefully remove the airbag LED sub-assembly (?? I'll call it that) from the back of the switch (#2 in the image below). It isn't designed to be removed, but it can be done - a couple of tiny screwdrivers and perhaps needle-nose pliers will get the job done. Slide the screwdrivers between the housing wall on the left and right side of the sub-assembly you're removing to spread those outer parts to the point the snap-connector things aren't working (their placement #3 in the image below.) The trick is to release all four of the connections at once that keep it in place. A little rocking can help, and pulling with pliers. Don't worry too much about damaging it the way I did as you can only really do that from the business-end of the assembly where you can see the little circuit board and the LEDs. The housing is quite durable.
- Next, find some black tape, or something else that blocks 100% of the light. I used black duck tape. Make little pieces and stick them on the back side the translucent parts of the face of the main housing. I used two or three pieces, layered.
- At this point you can be done, optionally, but then you'd still have to look at utterly meaningless white printed "PASSENGER AIR BAG" text. So....
- Next, optionally, sand off "PASSENGER AIR BAG" text. This is why you removed the hazard switch above, to avoid scratching it, since it sits a little proud of the face of the housing. To sand off the text, get some 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Mount it on a somewhat compliant surface, like the ribber pad on some sanding blocks. Then gently draw the face of the switch over the paper from top to bottom (not side to side.) Do this repeatedly until the text is gone. The resulting matte finish looks almost like the original and looks quite 'stock'.
- Snap the parts back together, reconnect it to the wiring harness leads, and snap it into place.
The back of the switch once pulled from the dash:
The finished product:
![](https://i.ibb.co/c1Y0r37/image.png)
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