whats the best way to take off airbag/steering wheel without it blowing up?

?????????????

Easy

Disconnect the negative terminal on the battery and put it well away from the connection incase they accidentally touch again, wait for 30 mins, this will be enough time for any charge to disappear to stop the airbag going off.

To then remove,

you turn the wheel 90 degrees either side you will see a small hole on the top, some find it easier to do it from the bottom? Insert a small flat head screwdriver into the hole as fas as you can making sure the handle stays pressed against the steering wheel because you want to get the end of the driver as far up as possible. Only when it is completely in, then pull up on the handle of the driver so the end of it pushes downwards towards the centre of the wheel. It may take a few tries but it will pop off, then repeat from the other side.

Remember, the trick is to make sure the handle of the driver stays firmly against the steering wheel as you push it into the hole.

Then the airbag should come off, unclip the wires before you pull it too far out from the steering wheel. Then to remove the steering wheel there is a 24mm nut, and a few torx to remove and it will come off.

The above guide is for a MK5 Polo, but I can imagine it being very similar if not the same for a MK4 Polo

Been trying to do this for over 2 hours on a Lupo.

Want to replace the clockring to see whether that extinguishes the airbag light.

I can see some damage around the entry hole where someone has been there previously.

What an awful design.

FFS Volkswagen

Edited 9 September, 201214 yr by dvderlm

If the airbag light is on it will not go off as the system is in safe mode so no power is there.

I have done this many times and have usually not remove the battery, just kept the keys far away from the ignition, this is to avoid having to reset the light. Although the correct way is to disconnect it.

ALS to get the wheel off without the clocking mech is to undo the small torx screws inside the steering wheel then slide the wheel off. Also there is a certain procedure to aligning it before puttin the wheel back.

HTH

Well it's reassuring to know the airbag is not going to inflate while the light is on while I work on it.

Is it a latched fault inside the airnag controller then...?

But no good for new MOT rules and not 'safe mode' while driving.

But you can't keep the keys far away from the ignition because in order to rotate the wheel to gain access to the spring clip through the rear access holes you have to undo the steering wheel lock.

So I disconnected the battery negative and waited 2 minutes like Haynes says.

Depending on the length of screwdriver you have (I used a 22cm one with 6mm blade after a 15cm thin one bent!) it is probably easier using the hole exposed below the wheel or the speedo and revcounter prevent access.

And Haynes book of lies says a piece of wire can unhook. That's a bad joke.

The important thing about getting the effing air bag off (discovered after slipping and popping one side off then pressing it back in as I tried not to fall off the seat ) is not just that the handle of the screwdriver is parallel to the steering column, but crucially the angle of the screw driver flat blade.

Angle the blade radially to centre of wheel and you can actually press the large holding ring.

Place it tangentially to circumference of wheel and you will keep slipping past the 3mm thick holding ring and just press plastic or metal behind.

There are some tiny clips whose purpose I have yet to work out. Original airbag did not have them. A replacement airbag does.

Maybe the last poor idiot to fight the insane catch design destroyed them,

Anyway, the clock ring was not the problem.

There are infact 2 clockrings . One for the horn - which was a little dirty.

One for the airbag. It's wires conducted fine.

So I'm gonna try with an OBD II scan tool to see whether that will let me see and reset any airbag fault code.

I'd already tried with a serial VAGCOM cable and VCDS and VAGCOM 409.1 but I think I had blown up that cable on a Skoda with an aftermarket radio.