Air bag control electrical gremlins

[Schreier]

Hello, gents!

I recently acquired an Oxford Green Metallic 2000 Z3 2.3 roadster, and I just love the little thing. It delights me to no end, and I haven't even had adequate weather to take the top down.

The bad news, unfortunately, is that the airbag light is on. I was hoping that it would just be pinched seat sensor wires, so I bought the Peake SRS scan and reset tool, and recorded the codes. There's quite a few, and some repeat multiple times. The tool isn't able to reset any of them.

17 Satellite, right sensor (for side airbag), comms fault or open circuit
17 Satellite, right sensor (for side airbag), comms fault or open circuit
17 Satellite, right sensor (for side airbag), comms fault or open circuit
1A Seat occupied recognition 1 (SBE1)
01 Firing circuit, driver airbag, stage 1
F0 Control unit fault, internal error
16 Satellite, left sensor (for side airbag), comms fault or open circuit
16 Satellite, left sensor (for side airbag), comms fault or open circuit
11 Supply voltage
1A Seat occupied recognition 1 (SBE1)

What should be the first course of action?

F0 indicates to me that the whole airbag control unit is kaput. The part number for the module is 65776908896, and it's $500 for an "uncoded" unit. A used module can go for $25-80 on Ebay, but there's no telling of the quality, how well it would work in an accident.

A helpful user in another forum suggested pulling the airbag control module, waiting for it to discharge, and re-inserting it. Is this likely to help at all?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[colb]

With that amount of faults I would suspect the control unit or even bad connections at the control box end.
No harm in pulling the unit and letting it discharge and refitting having cleaned all the connections first.
Always disconnect the battery before doing anything with the airbag system. Have you tried a B800 airbag code reader to see if that would clear codes, B800 readers are quite cheap on ebay.

 

[GazHyde]

I don't think I've come across a z3 with that many air bag codes before. Looks to be more than wiring so would agree with it possibly being the control unit. You could try disconnecting the battery for a while and see if that helps, butt I'd think unlikely.

With the faults you have the airbags will be disabled, so any replacement unit may possibly being no better isn't as bad a factor anyway.

 

[Brian H]

First course of action for me would be to clear the codes, drive the car and see what comes back...if any.