I removed my air bag today so I could get the steering wheel off, although I didn't take it off in the end. Long story short. I put the airbag back and now the airbag light is on. All connections are back as they were. Is there a way to turn it off? 

 

Thanks

Andy

The only way is with the correct diagnostic kit like VCDS with a CAN lead as for some reason the airbag control unit only communicates via the CANbus

Might be worth pulling the battery for a while on the offchance, but like Nige says, it'll probably need VCDS or a decent third party code reader. 

Thanks chaps.

Unplugging the battery didn't work. VCDS it is then.

 

If you had disconnected the battery before you disconnected the airbag and reconnected it after refitting you wouldn't have the warning light on :(

 

 

My main issue is that I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. The last car I did any real work on was a renault 19, well before all this electronic guff. I was trying to diagnose why the horn wasn't working and because the horn is awkward to get to and it's cold outside I decided to start at the other end. Clearly not my best idea, particularly because the problem was the sounder connections.

Every day is a school day I suppose. There is an auto electrician 500 meters from my front door but paying 45 quid for his services on a 150 quid car because of my own stupidity is painful.

Might pay to have a look on our members map https://www.clubpolo.co.uk/membermap/  to see if there are any members near you and then contacting them to see if they have VCDS ?

Will do, thanks. How much do the diagnostics cost to buy? I presume the cheap stuff on ebay is cheap for a reason.

You can get a HEX + CAN lead on eBay around £25 then the software VCDS Lite is free to download from the Ross-tech site, it gives you limited functions but you can erase any fault codes so turning off any warning lights, if you want the full functions of the program, you can buy a licence from Ross Tech for $99  or there are some Chinese imported leads on eBay that will give you the full functions but you can't update them so as new models are released you wouldn't be able to connect to them, search for VCDS 17 and that will bring them up for around £50

An update on this for anyone who may have the same issue. I bought the pro scan v500 for £30 on ebay and it worked a treat. 👍