Swapping Seat Airbags Rather than Splicing?

Hello all,

I know questions about seat swaps have been asked about a million times, but I haven't found too much information on swapping the airbags w/ the harness to the new seats.

I purchased a set of 04 GTI seats to swap into my 01 Jetta. The airbag connectors are different which has got me in a snag. I don't have access to VAG COM (possibly someone in the Baltimore area might) so I don't want to short cut the job to cause a light.

My soldering skills, well lets just face it, never soldered anything in my life.

So for those that have swapped the entire seat airbags and harness out from your old seats and into your new ones, how involved is this process? It seems like the best way of doing things rather than cutting wires and hoping the resistance values are correct.

For someone thats never tore apart a seat before, how involved is it to swap airbags and the harness themselves. Any special tools? Hickups to look out for?

O and both the seats are heated.

I'd appreciate any input. I'm no mechanic by any means, just a weekend wrench turner with enough knowledge about cars to probably get himself in trouble

VW says to never use solder on the wiring harness. It can wick up inside the wire and cause breakage. There's really no need to use solder on a harness either.

The proper way is to extract the pins out of the connector and put them into the proper mating connector. So, you would take the connector off your current seat and put it on the new seats. The terminals should be the same.

If you have to make a splice, use a heat shrink butt crimp. They are VW approved and make a really nice tight joint.

turbocharged798 said:

VW says to never use solder on the wiring harness. It can wick up inside the wire and cause breakage. There's really no need to use solder on a harness either.

The proper way is to extract the pins out of the connector and put them into the proper mating connector. So, you would take the connector off your current seat and put it on the new seats. The terminals should be the same.

If you have to make a splice, use a heat shrink butt crimp. They are VW approved and make a really nice tight joint.

Click to expand...

Don't you need a tool to remove the pins though on the harness?

And bump for anyone that has just removed the entire air bag itself and moved it to their new seats.

I know a couple of you are out there. It would be much appreciated so I can get these damn things in my car and out my apartment. I'm pretty certain I'm the only one that is rocking a two tone interior... leather backs and cloth fronts

Seems like a lot of extra work for nothing and if the airbags are shaped differently the older one may not fit correctly or function correctly if it ever needs to deploy.

So buy a pin extraction tool already. It will take less than 5 minutes to swap the connectors and as a plus, you will have a tool that is just about mandatory for some of the other mods you might want to do.

Cut the connectors, splice the new ones in with a butt crimp as mentioned above and be on your way.

If the key isn't in the on position when you do this, you shouldn't get the idiot light. If you do, there is a pretty heavy concentration of TDI'ers in your area. Meet up with one to clear the code. It will take less time and aggravation than swapping bags.

Why would you ever swap the physical airbag instead of simply re-wiring them?

It's a 5 min job.

If you are worried about the airbag going off, disconnect the battery.

Sounds like a plan everyone, thanks for the input. Looks like the butt crimp is the easiest way. I was worried about too high of resistance values, but it looks like VW actually does this to repair faulty air bag harnesses.

Extracting the terminal is by far the easiest and best way. The vw techs I know will repair the wire however that it is only a last resort. Leave the wire intact and extract the terminal less chance of resistance in the wire etc. Its an airbag and sensitive to voltage resistance etc leave it alone unless you absolutely have to.

glitdi said:

Extracting the terminal is by far the easiest and best way. The vw techs I know will repair the wire however that it is only a last resort. Leave the wire intact and extract the terminal less chance of resistance in the wire etc. Its an airbag and sensitive to voltage resistance etc leave it alone unless you absolutely have to.

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What he said. Butt crimps are when you have no other option to connect the wire.

Extract terminals from both connectors and swap them out. Even if you don't have the terminal tool its still doable with tweezers or wire.

Since its an interior connector, it should be non-sealing type which are usually very very easy to pop the terminal out.

I agree extracting the terminals is the most fail safe, best method to use. Upon closer look at the seats, it looks like the splicing has already been performed by someone else, and is a shoddy job at best.

The wire gauge is much thicker which will probably give resistance problems and an almost guaranteed air bag light. So it looks like pin extraction is out the question.

I'm between swapping connectors or losing the connectors completely and butt crimp the connectors directly to the cars harness (I’ve heard this has been done as well).

It also looks like I’m going to have problems with the seat buckle and will need to swap my old ones to the new seats... I will admit, I should have looked further into the seats to see all this before purchase but it was such a good deal for a new interior, I couldn't pass it up. My cloth seats are shot to hell with no support.

I agree extracting the terminals is the most fail safe, best method to use. Upon closer look at the seats, it looks like the splicing has already been performed by someone else, and is a shoddy job at best.

The wire gauge is much thicker which will probably give resistance problems and an almost guaranteed air bag light. So it looks like pin extraction is out the question.

I'm between swapping connectors or losing the connectors completely and butt crimp the connectors directly to the cars harness (I’ve heard this has been done as well).

It also looks like I’m going to have problems with the seat buckle and will need to swap my old ones to the new seats... I will admit, I should have looked further into the seats to see all this before purchase but it was such a good deal for a new interior, I couldn't pass it up. My cloth seats are shot to hell with no support.

Does anyone know where to find a cheap set of torx bits? Looks like i'm going to need one to remove the buckle.

Again, appreciate all the help. This site is great. I wouldn't tackle on the projects I've done to my car without it.

Any local auto shop should have a good selection of torx bits.

T'sTDI said:

Does anyone know where to find a cheap set of torx bits? Looks like i'm going to need one to remove the buckle.

Again, appreciate all the help. This site is great. I wouldn't tackle on the projects I've done to my car without it.

Click to expand...

That should be a 12pt spline tool that is needed, not a Torx.

Bump.......anybody have a step by step for extracting pins and placing them on new connector?.....thanks, Jef