Greetings all

Have been the happy owner of a 6N2 for a week now, having kitted both children with a 6N during their university days!

One challenge - my airbag warning light flashes for a while when starting - probably the 12 seconds mentioned in the manual if the passenger-side airbag has been deactivated but haven't timed it. And then stays out for the rest on any trip. So popped down to my local VW to enquire about getting it reactivated and got a plan for £114 for an hours worth of diagnostics. Which seems silly to me. I figure it is either a 5 minute job (if it reactivates without error) or 10 minutes (to deactivate it again if there is some passenger side airbag fault an deactivating it was a way to mask the light being on permanently!)

I have no evidence the car has been in an accident so expect that (as it is a 3 door) someone had a childseat in the front and had it deactivated. But of course could learn something new!

Any thoughts welcome, but in particular any recommendations for someone in the Reading/Berkshire area who could be trusted to do the necessary?

Thanks

£114 is probably the right price, but is way too much for this simple task. You can buy a vagcom cable cheap on eBay. This is a copied version of the Ross's tech cable and has a freeware version of there software. I am fairly certain you wil be allowed to re activate the airbags with his. If not it's still a very good tool to have around as it allows you to scan various systems in the car to diagnos most problems as well as live data readings etc.

Failing that I would look for a vw specialist near you and ask them about it, I would imagine it would be around the £20-£30 mark as its a simple task and will not take a half hour.

Also, this is the first I have heard of this and to me it will be very useful as we would have to put both child seats in the back otherwise, and it would be great if she could have one of them up front.

I'm fairly apposed to airbags anyway as they do very little if you have your seat belt on - which you really should as its your only lifeline and illegal not too :)

Also, MOT wise it wouldn't make a difference because the light goes off in less then 30 seconds and doesn't come back on.

Edited 7 February, 201511 yr by dixy

Cheers - some good ideas. In the medium term probably will go with a VAG-COM cable and VCDS - my main limiting factor with this route is there is no PC in the house running Windoze so may be best to try find a cheapo laptop first with XP.

There are 2 VW specialists nearby (or who claim) so this is a good trial for them - will stop by when I am across that side of town.

I thought it was perverse to the 6N2 (as most other cars I have come across have a key switch to disable the passenger airbag - think later Polos do as well) but seems 6N1s from about 1997 have the same 'software disable' and 12 seconds of flashing.

Will update in a couple of weeks when I have had a chance to try out the independent VW folk.

Thanks again

Sorted.

Had my car in to Storm Developments in Aldermaston (recommended somewhere on this forum) for a CV joint replacement and got the airbag sorted at the same time. Cannot recommend them highly enough for folks about West Berks.