Seat Swap = Airbag light
 

I just purchased leather tan seats from a active. I disconnected the batteries before swapping. After 2 hours of swapping the front to seats, I reconnect the battery and start the car up to a airbag light. The seats didn't have a problem on the previous car.

I quadruple checked all the wiring. Can I just take it to BMW and have it cleared? or is there more to this?

might be that the passenger seat occupancy sensors busted, its a little black box on the bottom of the passenger seat.

swap it with your old seats and try again, might want to cycle the key a few times so it can clear it.
if not, the dealer can clear it.

The leather seats didn't have it, so I removed it from my old seat and used it. Btw, I have a base.

oh ok, i have a 96 base auto and thats what was wrong with mine, swapped it out with one from a spare pair of seats we had and cleared the code with our scanner and it worked fine.

did you try cycling the key in hopes that it clears it? what works sometimes is going all the way to the position before start and back to off 5 times quickly.

I'll try it out right now.

Edit: No luck =\

hmm probably going to have to find a way to clear the light then to see whether its bad or not and if it is, replace it then clear it again.

Ah ok. I was thinking the same thing. Thanks for the help. I'm gonna stop by the dealership tomorrow and see what's up.

If anyone else can pinpoint the problem, then post away.

no problem

Btw, paid $50 for the perfect condition front seats. Tomorrow i'm going back and purchasing the perfect rears for another $50. What a steal!

check again the plugs for the seatbelts are in properly.

Remeber never to have the ignition on when the seats are removed , as the SRS lamp will come on !

The lamp must be reset. Whether its at BMW or with at home reset tool that has this function.

Wtf $100 just to have them "look at the problem". Is there any other way that I can reset it like the service light?

I have a 96' and I did an interior swap with a 98'. I had the light on in my car and the other car didn't but my light still stayed on. I've tried to clear it and it still stays on. If it annoys you enough just remove the bulb.

I don't know about resetting it, I tried that and it came right back on.

And also couldn't the SRS light be on because of the seat belt latch/harness not just the seat sensor? Or did I just make that up.

Hmm, my vader swap went without a hitch. They had the older style seat belt receptacles, so I swapped the ones off of my sport seats onto them. I disconnected BOTH positive and negative cables from the battery prior to the swap and hooked them back up after everything was back together. No airbag light. It lights up for the first 4 or 5 seconds when I start the car, which is normal. Then when Bobbak installed my sport seats into his car, he had to install his older style receptacles onto them. He only disconnected the negative battery cable IIRC and sure enough, when he started the car, the airbag light came on.

note, the front seat belt receptacles are armed with an Automatic Locking Tensioner. This device retracts the recepticle about 2 inches in the event of an accident. 318ti's built up to 03/97 use a mechanical auto-locking mechanism(part#'s 72118167711 left and 72118167712 right) while models built after 03/97 use a pyrotechnic auto-locking mechanism (part#'s 72118221013 left and 72118221014 right).

Son of a damnit!! I did the same thing bobbak did. :shakefis:

I was in a rush that I wasn't even thinking. Did he ever fix it?

I'm pretty sure he did. You'll need to buy or borrow an SRS reset tool. Most shops will have one and will probably let you use it or charge very little if you explain what you've done to them.