My daughter has just purchased a Fiat 500 Pop.

When viewing we were advised that it had a warning on start up but other wise drove fine.

The vendor assured us that this was easly fixed and had alreadty purchased but not fitted a replacement SRS module.

I checked online and threads seemed to suggest we could replace the module (with all the usual precautions) and then take it in to have a Proxy alignment done and fingers crossed all would be well.

So we went ahead with the purchase ...


So my first problem is that I have just found out that the replacement module has a different part number.

The original was 51867767 and the replacement is 51870005, so my my first question is are they compatible?

I would say not, which explains why the vendor had swopped it!
Dealer or private sale?

Before swoping anything
You really need to find out why the air bag light is on. It can be many things other than the air bad module.

Where are you located? Someone may be nearby who can help read code for air bag light.

Is the car accident repaired?
If so air bag light may be on due to stored crash data.

Hi again

Member typecastboy is the person on here with a focussed experience of this kit

And has offered great info regarding supply and test of these items

What region are you based in..?

A lot of the UK is now starting to move around again

Charlie

This was a private sale.

I did various checks and nothing suggests it is accident repaired.

I am in East Grinstead West Sussex, but would be happy to travel if someone could scan the faults.

I have ordered an ELM327 and will download MultiECUScan, but I am not familiar with this kit and gather I might have to modify tyhe ELM327 to get it to work. So if someone has the kit I would be very grateful and willing to pay

hairyone said:

This was a private sale.

I did various checks and nothing suggests it is accident repaired.

I am in East Grinstead West Sussex, but would be happy to travel if someone could scan the faults.

I have ordered an ELM327 and will download MultiECUScan, but I am not familiar with this kit and gather I might have to modify tyhe ELM327 to get it to work. So if someone has the kit I would be very grateful and willing to pay

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Fingers fed you will be able to use multiecuscan with cable without problems.

Took me a while to get it working but I didn't have to modify a cable.

If you do have to do something with airbag module after reading codes

https://www.crashdata.co.uk/fiat-500-51867767-airbag-module-repair-p/653.htm

Thanks guys,

I did see the repair service on crashdata. Just need to get the faults read.

Do you know if the car can be driven with the SRS module removed. I am assuming that with the fault the airbags may not be working, so if the module has to be posted then the car is no less sage than it was before.

hairyone said:

Thanks guys,

I did see the repair service on crashdata. Just need to get the faults read.

Do you know if the car can be driven with the SRS module removed. I am assuming that with the fault the airbags may not be working, so if the module has to be posted then the car is no less sage than it was before.

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The car can be driven but the airbags won't work

Hello and welcome to the forum.

hairyone said:

The vendor assured us that this was easly fixed

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That is a major red flag. If it really was 'easily fixed', the vendor would likely have done so.

Personally I would only buy a car with an airbag warning illuminated if I could see a clear profit in breaking it for parts.

I've posted the above to help anyone else who may find themselves in a similar situation; please don't take it personally. What's done is done, and there are people here who can help you resolve this.

I'm not one of them; I don't believe it's appropriate to repair any part of the SRS system using salvaged parts. Selling or using such parts is contrary to the Code of Practice for the Disposal of Motor Vehicle Salvage (though there are plenty for sale on ebay and elsewhere). You can repair the system using such parts (unless you are in Germany, where all work on airbag systems must by law be done by properly licenced professionals), and will likely be able to get the warning lights out. What you cannot do is achieve an OEM level of certainty that everything will deploy correctly in case of an accident. There has been serious research done on this subject; the conclusion is that there is an additional level of risk associated with SRS component reuse that is greater than would normally be admissible by first world safety standards in a life-critical system.

My personal advice is to have it repaired properly by an authorised airbag specialist using new parts, but the bill is likely to run into four figures (which is why so many folks cut corners on this).

At the end of the day, it's your choice; personally I don't think the risk of carrying out repairs like this yourself is worth the additional risk to someone's life, so I'll leave it to the other members to tell you how to proceed from here.

Thanks Jrkitching

Your point is well made.

I'm going to get the faults read first and decide how to proceed from there.

If necessary I'll have to bite the bullet and shell out for new parts.

hairyone said:

Thanks Jrkitching

Your point is well made.

I'm going to get the faults read first and decide how to proceed from there.

If necessary I'll have to bite the bullet and shell out for new parts.

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Don't panic.
Like you say find out what the code is first.
Even if you do need a brand new module they are £400 and something online.

You have the metal cased one and are trying to replace with the plastic cased one? If I have understood your post correctly then they are not compatible. If your car has the metal cased one (only used up to 2010) It has to be replaced with a metal cased one. They are available second hand but are more expensive as they are rarer.

I’ve already replied to your PM but you do need to get the correct one. I’m happy to plug it in and see if we can find what the problem is. There may not be any airbag problems it may just be the ECU.

“Airbag failure see hand book” could be something as simple as an under seat connection, sometimes the squib in an airbag can go bad and some people out there still think you can unplug the battery and clear the fault. The replacement you have could have just been bundled in to sell the car because the vendor tried unplugging the battery and it didn’t clear the fault, he had an airbag ECU so decided to include it in the sale to save spending money on getting it fixed.

If you can get the codes read you may find it’s a simple fix, it might not be so easy but worst case you buy the right Ecu and it sorts it out. Sell the one in your hand as untested and recoup some of the costs

Hairyone, I hope you get it sorted with help from the folks on here. I've put in the link below to the 500 specialist that we bought my wife's car from - it's in your vicinity. If you run out of options you could always see if they can help. I don't know if they do much repairing, but they have been dealing with 500s for a few years and probably know of a few useful contacts in the area.

We found them good to deal with when buying, and addressing a small aftersales problem.

https://www.lyonsfarmcars.co.uk/

He’s coming to me this afternoon. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.

typecastboy said:

He’s coming to me this afternoon. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.

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Fantastic , thank you, have you warned him about the fox problem

typecastboy said:

He’s coming to me this afternoon. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.

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Let us know how you get on!!?

Well, it's another strange one. MES came up with both side impact sensors fault. Both sides!! Both sides in a car that as far as we can tell hasn't been in an accident. I don't think so!!

Proxy alignment wouldn't work as it says there's an Airbag ECU fault so wouldn't write to it. I mentioned the problem with the speedo recently on the fella from the Isle of Wight and how that affected his passenger airbag exclusion switch and so I scrolled through the menu and the passenger airbag doesn't even come up onthe display even though it says the bag itself is OK in MES.

That leads me to think that its either the ECU or the speedo or both. He has ordered the correct ECU on eBay while he was here so will wait with interest to see if that does it, but I suspect that it's both the ECU and the Speedo. The car is well over 100K miles so it won't be difficult to get a cheap replacement speedo.

No Foxes by the way

The speedo (if it's needed) will have to be "virginsed" to prevent the missmatch between electronic boxes. Companies like ECU testing Ltd do the job.

DaveMcT said:

The speedo (if it's needed) will have to be "virginsed" to prevent the missmatch between electronic boxes. Companies like ECU testing Ltd do the job.

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Nothing of the sort is usually needed to the Speedo just the millage updating and a proxi alligment