Airbag Light

[hardboiled2]

Hey all-
Can you check to see how long it takes the airbag light to go off after you start the car? Mine goes on then all goes off for a micro second then goes on again. Then it goes of after about a minute.

Thanks,

Joe

[bigred318]

you have a pic of the light? is it the light that is closet to the right side of your guages? if so mine goes off a few min after start, has something to do with my sensorin my seat belt or something. anyways doesnt affect anything just annoying.

does the light look like a dude and a cirle by him?

David

[ganjacyde]

this has been covered a million times here, please search

its typically a faulty seat belt tensioner that causes the light to illuminate for longer periods of time. could be many things though, but this is usually the problem though.

[victorgallas]

on the later e36, the seat bealt tensioner, that thing on the seat where you clip you belt onto, has a swicth to tell the airbag unit you have the seat belt on. they use this now because some many people decided that since the car has an airbag i dont need a belt, wrong. the airbag is a SUPLEMENTAL RESTRAIN SYSTEM. meaning that if you dont have the belt and the bag goes off, yes you can get killed, since youre going forwards and the bag on the opposite way. so to stop people form getting killed on with airbags they put thi swicth so the airbag wont go off in case of an accident.
in the light is comming on intermittently, then the swicht is about to be faulty.

you neeed a new tensioner on the dealer,

get the seat out, unscrew the old tensioner out and then run the wires plug evertything in and reasemble the seat on the car..

very inportant, keep the car off.

and when youre done with the job, you can either go to the dealer, or someone with an airbag code reader and reset the light, or the cheap way used on independent shops. unplug the negative terminal for like 30 min. the wait time in necessary because the airbag unit has a condensor that stores energy. so waiting 30 min will ensure that it looses the power and the unit looses all power, reseting itself. THIS WORKS MOST OF THE TIME.