Hello All,

I am in need of your technical expertise. Over the weekend I installed lighted door sills and lighted signal mirrors in my Roadster (thank you Chis ). I followed the install threads here and other than a minor panic or two everything went extremely well (Big Thanks Max ) and they look and work beautifully.

After I completed the installs I of course took a little ride (just to be sure everything worked as good as it looked ). My issue is that to my dismay I now have a red air bag light on in the the instrument cluster.

When I disassembled everything to be able to run the wiring I removed both access panels at the ends of the dash. The one on the drivers side hides the fuse box and the one on the passenger side contains the passenger air bag shut off switch. I unplugged the air bag shut off switch from the right hand dash panel so it wouldn't hang when I did my install. Afterwords I plugged the switch back in a reinstalled the panel.

Switching the air bag switch "off" then "on" does not clear the light. Has anyone else had this happen? Do any of you have any ideas on how to clear this? And yes the battery was disconnected for several hours while I was installing the kits.

Thank you for your time and consideration; your help and knowledge are much appreciated.

Stay safe...


Respectfully,


Paul (MisterTaz)

 

Paul,

did you disconnect either of the airbags in the doors? Maybe one is still disconnected? This would result in a fault when the SRS sytem "polls" all of the components.

Best and good hunting, brother!

 

Hey Max,

I don't believe so. I tried to stay as far away from the air bags as possible. Man I really don't want to have to pull the doors apart again . Nothing ever goes easy.

Stay safe...


Respectfully,


Paul (MisterTaz)

 

The airbag systems in our cars or any MB cars for that matter are very finicky. You unplugging the passenger disable switch broke the electrical loop with the airbag system and it is now registering a fault with the airbag system. This part is very important. YOU DON'T HAVE WORKING AIRBAGS RIGHT NOW!!! You could slam your car into a tree at 100mph and if that light is on, they will NOT deploy. Go to the dealer and make up some excuse like you had your nephew in the car in a car seat and turned it off or something like that and when you turned it back on, the light showed up. They will know the fault had something to do with the switch being disconnected because each component has a unique ID for when the system does a self check when you turn the car on. They should be able to reset it in a matter of minutes. Words of wisdom, always disconnect your negative battery terminal for 20 minutes before you start doing just about anything with this car. It does funky stuff when things get unplugged and then plugged back in. Hope this helps.

On a lighter note, post pics of the new add-ons. I don't want to have to wait until Carlisle to see your new goodies! LOL

 

I'm glad someone with knowledge answered!

 

I've had the guys at the dealership reset my airbag light over a dozen times and after about the 4th time, they started giving me a hard time because they knew I was messing with stuff but they knew it was just somethign that got unplugged and they loved the warranty work when they could charge out an hour and it only took 10 minutes. Finally I asked someone at MB why it did that and they gave me the info I posted above. Started doing that and no more airbag light.

 

Hey Rudy,

Thank you for the advice. I went to the dealer and told them I gave the neighbor kid a ride and blah blah. It didn't work; the mechanic opened the door and said "Neighbor Kid huh? ~ yeah; so how did the lighted sills and mirrors get in there?"

Busted!

Oh well it didn't matter anyway because after I waited an hour and a half I went looking for some answers. I tracked the service writer and mechanic down and they said they can't fix it right now? Apparently there is a "Magic" cable (a 6150 or something ~ one of many for this car) that is required to talk to the car about only these kind of functions and their cable can't be found.

Supposedly they are going to try to see how long it will take to get a cable in the morning. Oh wait; now I'm holding my breath...

Unfortunately I think I am stuck at least until tomorrow; God I love dealerships . Hopefully some dealer in this Godforsaken frozen wasteland of a State will have a "Magic" cable, we'll see. Like I said in my earlier post;

"Nothing ever goes easy "

Oh and Rudy; I'm running alone to Carlisle so you can call shotgun ~ if you Dare!

But you just might have to wear a helmet !

Thanks to you and Max for the help. More tomorrow when I hear more. Stay safe...


Respectfully,


Paul (MisterTaz)

 

I installed both the lighted sills and mirrors also with no problems. I discounted my negative from the battery and did not remove the plug from the air bag on/off switch.