Disabling airbags for mods/maintenance

[manual_tranny]

Thanks y'all for another fantastic thread! Many of our Smyth Performance G3F kits car will be using the airbag delete mod. We know that whenever we need to know anything, anything at all, that tdiclub will pretty much always have the answer. Special thanks to MOGolf and Stealth TDI!!

-Mike

 

[\/\/0J0]

Like blackmagic, I recently installed newer seats into my 99.5 golf and the connectors don't mate up. I disabled the airbags with vcds in an attempt to get rid of the annoying yellow light. I cleared the codes about the ignitors being too high resistance but then got new codes to illuminate that darn light. Apparently, having the airbags disabled is an event that warrants annoying the driver with a warning light.

 

[kospoz]

I tried with a golf 1.4 AHW and i made it.But i have a problem with octavia 1.9 pd asz motor.In the adaptation the ecu gives me only the first two fields to change the other fields have error.Any ideas?

 

[kbrenny]

I read several threads on Vortex about using the 4.7 ohm 1/2 watt resistors to disable the airbag light when dealing with the seats.

Everyone there was certain the seats resistance value was 4.7 ohm and the steering wheel airbag was 2.2 ohm.

A few people thought the curtain airbags were 4.7 ohm also, although there were no confirmations because nobody had tried it. So I purchased some 4.7 ohm 1 watt resistors and tried with no success.

I kept getting "resistance too high" trouble code for the airbag I was working on.

I searched through all the resistors in my electronics project box and the smallest I had on hand was a 10 ohm 1/4 watt. This was too high a resistance value for what I was attempting.

Since that would not work I tried two of the 4.7 ohm 1 watt resistors in parallel which should be 2.35 ohm. My cheap harbor freight digital meter measured the value as 2.9 ohm. I trust the resistance value marked on the resistor much more than the harbor freight meter.

This worked, I have no airbag light. I have gone back and enabled the drivers curtain airbag so the light does not flash at me for 20 seconds every time I start the car or turn on the ignition.

I am installing a triple gauge pillar pod and did not want there to be even the slightest chance of having a gauge permanently implanted in my forehead.

Disabling the airbag through vagcom was more convenient but for piece of mind I wanted the curtain air bag unplugged completely.

In summary the resistor value for the curtain airbag should be around 2.2 ohms (if the same as steering wheel airbag) although I was using 2.35 ohms and it worked.

Most recommendations are for a 1/2 watt resistor while I used a heavier 1 watt to be safe.

The resistor should be wired between the blue wire and grey wire / pins.
The colors may change with different models but mine is a 2002 Jetta Wagon.

The only other wire besides the blue and grey on that harness is the brown wire which goes to a grounding point on the airbag module itself.

I also recommend using the blue resistors vs the tan ones. The blue resistors are metal film while the tan ones are carbon composition.

The major advantage, in this application, of the blue metal film resistors is that if they fail they do not produce the heat that a carbon resistor can. The ones I used were labeled "flameproof".

 

[Madmax1]

Hey, just done this on a scirroco and the mfd says airbag disabled each time I start it, anyway to stop it?