So I've noticed a bit of a dodgy one in the last couple of days.

My airbag light has been covered up with something, I have no idea what. I've noticed that when I turn the car on the airbag light comes on, you can only really see through whatever they've covered it up with when it's dark. I haven't, however, thought to check how long the airbag light stays on and the car isn't here at the moment, won't be near it until tomorrow night, at which point I'll try and get a photo.

What could this be, and would that be an MOT failure if it was noticed? If so, how the hell can I go about sorting it?

The light should come on with the ignition and then go out in around 5~10 seconds, if it stays on then there is a stored fault in the control unit and you'll need VCDS/Vagcom to read them ( a generic OBD reader will not be able to read them) and take the fault finding from there

Okay, I'll have to check tomorrow night how long it stays on for. I don't have Vagcom so what would be my best course of action?

It's going to be booked in for a service at the local VW garage fairly soon, is it worth mentioning it to them then?

The VW garage should have the correct kit to do the diagnosis, just don't let them rip you off!! if possible just get the fault codes and report them back on here and we should be able to advise, The only reason I say this, is last year I helped out another member on here after they had an airbag light on and their independent garage quoted a minimum of £500 to rewire the airbag system and they couldn't guarantee it would fix the fault !! they got the fault codes from the garage and it turned out it just needed the control unit replacing £30 from ebay took me an hour to fit and all was good!

Okay, so take it to the garage and ask them to run a diagnostic, get the codes, post on here. Got it!

That's if I even remember, won't be booking it in for a while. All of the money I have at the moment is going on my test! I just thought I'd mention it and see what it could possibly be, but I guess I can't know until then!

I still find it quite suspicious that somebody has done their best to blot it out, and there's no way to really get rid of it either so even if it is a fault and it's sorted I wouldn't be able to see the light.

Why might somebody have done that?
(Sorry, a bit naive with this stuff still!)

Up till 2012 the MOT was a bit slack on the airbag warning light, but they have tightened up, so that's why someone has tried to cover the warning light, now the tester must see the light come on when the ignition is turned ON and it must go out within 5~10 seconds if it doesn't this means there is a fault with the airbag system and it should be an immediate fail!

It went through an MOT in May without any mention of airbag lights, so either it's been done since then or that MOT tester didn't check. Either way I can't bank on it being missed again if they've tightened up on it.

Is the fact that it's been covered up going to get me an immediate fail? Because that would be a huge pain in the ass.

In theory it is an immediate fail, but like most of the MOT it's down to the tester judgement and discretion, but you've got till next year till you have to worry about that,

Obviously it's better to have a working airbag system and at the moment, with the fail light on it's not certain the system will work in the event of an accident, so in the event of an accident and you having to claim for personal injuries the insurance might be unwilling to pay out if there was evidence that the warning light had been obscured/tampered with !

Yeah that's pretty much what I suspected. I've got until May to sort it and I just have to not need the airbag in the meantime!

I'll come back to this post once I have codes!

Yep, today confirmed it. The airbag light is on all the time. So I'm gonna have to try and get the fault codes. Don't know anybody that's likely to have vagcom I can use near me, so it's gonna be a trip to the VW garage.

You can get the lead on ebay around £20 and the software is free from www.ross-tech.com this will enable you to do basic code reading on your laptop

Sounds really odd, but I don't own a laptop with Windows. I own a Mac. (I know)

Would it allow me to do enough to get those codes, do you reckon? Because I could probably appropriate a laptop from somebody for that use.

Is this the lead I would need?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VAG-GROUP-USB-COM-PORT-OBD2-II-KKL-ECU-DIAGNOSTIC-CABLE-LEAD-VCDS-LITE-409-/171175298869?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item27dad7c735

That's the lead, but you will need a proper laptop not a bit of fruit Haha ! then you will be able to read the codes, but other more advanced operations you need to buy a licence from ross tech for 99$ that will then provide you with full functions

My girlfriend has a netbook that's a few years old and a bit slow, but I imagine can probably run the basic version!

I broke my Windows laptop a month or so ago and haven't felt the need to replace it yet!

It's tempting to save up and get the licence, I'll see how I get on with the lite version first. :)

until you need to re-code units or more complex things the basic setup should see you fine

I know this was a while ago and you are probably sorted by now....

Obviously its better to have a working Airbag system but the MoT situation currently is;

Air bag light staying on = fail

Air bag light NEVER coming on = advise & pass

See the MoT forum for full details on this [http://forums.motester.co.uk/]

So if the car was MoTed with the light obscured (never coming on) - the tester should have recorded that the light is not working in the advisory section of your MoT certificate.

I haven't actually been near the car for a good week or so, so it's still an issue.

There was no advisory regarding the airbag light on it's last MOT in May.

I suppose it would be discretionary to the tester. They'd either take it as never coming on, or look closely and notice it's been obscured and then even closer to notice the light is still on.

So I plugged in my reader today and searched for fault codes.

The code for the airbag system was;

00588 - Airbag igniter, driver side (N95)

32-10 - Resistance too high - intermittent

At the same time I ran a check on other systems and got one other fault code for the engine;

01087 - Basic setting not performed

20- 10 - Malfunction in basic setting - intermittent

I cleared both faults, the airbag fault came back straight away but the engine one didn't.

Ross-Tech says that either the wire to the Airbag Igniter is faulty, or the Igniter itself is faulty. What does that entail and how would I fix it?

For the engine code possible solution it says to perform the basic setting. How do I do that?

Sorry, I'm a complete noob to all things electrical.

I would ignore the engine one for now, that code could of been there for some time, rescan it after running it for a week or more, then see if it has come back, then start a new post with the codes etc.

The airbag, it's either the slipring/clockspring at the back of the steering wheel or the airbag itself, the chances are someone in the past has had the steering wheel off and damaged the slipring/clockspring not a lot you can do with it other than replace it

Yeah, I figured it's just stored in the memory.

I had a feeling that the wheel's been taken off before, I think it's had a non-standard one at some point and then been replaced with the standard one to be sold on.

I found the part number on VagCat but the part seems to be around £100?

I put the part number into ebay.de and one came up for a T4, but the part number is the same, for 47 euros. I imagine if the part number is the same, then they've just used the same part for more than one model of vehicle, and it should still fit?

What is the likelihood of my airbags not deploying if I had a crash? Is it something I should fix urgently or will it be okay for now? Pretty short on money at the moment.

You'll find that a lot, VW will use the same item on many models of a similar age, so as long as the part numbers match, you'll be OK

It's almost certain the airbag will not deploy at the moment, but cars a few years older never had an airbag! having said that, if you had an accident, that an airbag would of saved you from personal injury, your insurance company might investigate further and find the system was inoperative, they might not pay out !

I'll Look at getting it sorted once Christmas is out of the way then :)

I often wonder about airbags on older cars.

Even though the electrical side may be in perfect condition and not throw up any fault codes - warning light doing as it should, I get the niggle that the actual bag may no longer deploy due to deterioration.

I have never seen any comments about this, but it is the sort of thing that you may rely on, only for it to fail when (if) you ever do need it.

Regards

Thank you, that was very reassuring! :P

I understand what you mean though.