Replacing seat belt retractor (airbag Light

she_loves_the_D

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
Location
west coast
TDI
EA288 (mk7 tdi) kerma 1 million ftlb
So i purchased a salvage tdi a couple years ago. It had no airbag light on for the first few months.
After i installed a stereo it came on for some reason and hasnt turned back off.
The code is for the seatbelt igniter drivers side.
I tried cleaning the contacts but no luck. I looks like it may have been replaced at one point but its weird that the code didn't show up a few months.

So i am going to replace the assembly.
My question is does it have to be the exact part number that matches my vin?
There a lots of these for sale and it seems like any one of them would work but sometimes the part number is off or just missing the last 2 letters or something.
1J4857705THCP is the part. some of them i find are 1J4857705T or 1J4857705 for example.
 

dogdots

Vendor
Joined
Sep 4, 2002
Location
Kansas City
TDI
None
I had a 2004 Jetta I bought that had been off-roaded when it was in the process of trying to be repossessed :p. I got a really good deal on it. I had to replace the power steering pump, control arm on passenger side, and the igniter for the driver's side seatbelt deployed.

The car had a tan interior, and I had a parts car that was 2 years older with a black seatbelt, so I swapped the seatbelt and airbag control module. I was able to drive the car with no airbag light until I got a new matching tan seatbelt.

The problem with seatbelts is that the drivers and passenger side front seats have explosives and cannot be shipped easily on common carriers. My local VW dealer couldn't get me one, so I had them search nationwide and there was one in Chicago.

I had the Chicago dealer hold it because they couldn't ship it, and I picked it up a few months later when I was driving back from vacation in Canada. I swapped it in and drove the car without any issues for a year or so before selling it with full disclosure.
 

dogdots

Vendor
Joined
Sep 4, 2002
Location
Kansas City
TDI
None
They did not match, different colors are different part numbers. I can't remember where I found the cross-reference for the part numbers by chassis, I think searching on Ebay or somewhere.
 
Top