MarkFank

Short summary of my PRIOR airbag issue that took 9 days in the shop and $3000 to fix a few months ago:
1st visit, 2 days in shop - air bag light came on, VAGCOM error "driver side seat belt tensioner" Replaced but light still on.

2nd visit, 2 days in shop - air bag module replaced, light still on. Further testing shows short in wiring harness. Old module put back in.

3rd visit, 2 days in shop - wiring harness that was ordered was the wrong one & it is determined that the entire interior wiring harness has to be replaced which means removing the entire interior, dash, headliner etc. My car is a '00 with only 42,000 miles. Audi says they will pay 1/2 of the repair.

4th visit - 3 days in shop - entire interior was gutted & basically all the wiring was replaced. Total bill was just over $3,000. About $2200 of that in labor.

NOW - Saturday night while cruising on the freeway, light comes on. VAGCOM error "side airbag igniter driver's side resistance too high" I cleared the code & it came back Monday.

I love just about everything about this car except these stupid maintenance issues that seem impossible to fix. I've about had it with Audi but just can't find anything else that is as fun to drive, AWD & a nice interior. :-/

Ginseng Sniperâ„¢

I had an airbag light come on and the fault was for the passenger side airbag. It was cleared with a Vag-com and came right back. Your airbags are inoperable when the light is on. I brought it over to ASW (local shop) and the tech came out, dropped the glove box, disconnected the plug, blew in it, and reconnected it. He said that they are so sensitive that any minor foreign particles (dirt etc) can register a short in the system. The fault was cleared via vag and never came back since (it has since been 2 months). Hope this helps some...

MarkFank

I'll have to give it a try. Thanks!

dhjorth

00588 - Airbag Igniter; Driver Side (N95)
33-10 - Resistance too Low - Intermittent

I haven't even looked into it, I'm afraid to. The problem appears to be affected by the outside temperature, the code doesn't throw nearly as much when it is warm out. Bentley says it could be a defective spiral spring, drivers side airbag, or the control module. I will probably look into it this summer and hope it doesn't cost an arm and a leg like your repair did. Good luck and let us know if you get it fixed.

BTW this is on a 01.5 with 17k miles.

PSUEng

Only a few codes correspond to failures that will prevent airbag deployment. I don't know who told you that but that is incorrect.

PSUEng

I replaced my ECU--I emailed you about that. I would check the connection at the driver airbag first, then check the spiral cable. If the code is still there, I'd start with whichever of the two (spiral cable/airbag) is cheapest. The ECU is a 5 hour job--at least when I did it, but that was not breaking/scratching anything and it was my first time taking all that stuff apart.