I swapped my clocks over from my old car that was written off as the new ones have really flaky paint on the dials, this isn't exactly a fun job but the mileage isn't much more on my old car than the new one so was willing to put up with a slight increase.

Now the airbag light will not reset at the local dealer in Nuneaton

Does anyone out there know if the Airbag unit is linked to the main ECU in any way?

I'd rather avoid swapping the clocks back, but the guys in Nuneaton are suggesting I'd need a new airbag control unit costing way over £200 or possibly that it could be an ECU fault (although I know the only thing I have done is swapped the dials over with the battery off).

I'm thinking that if the Airbag control unit is completely seperate to the main ECU then I could just swap in the control unit from my old one if it needs to match up with the clocks??

umm, i swapped my original dials on my sei for white ones and the airbag warning light came on, a local garage managed to reset it, He reset mine using a connection near the bonnet release. not sure if this will help you at all as you have stated that it won't reset but thought my experience may help?

hope it gets sorted,

yellow seicento said:

umm, i swapped my original dials on my sei for white ones and the airbag warning light came on, a local garage managed to reset it, He reset mine using a connection near the bonnet release. not sure if this will help you at all as you have stated that it won't reset but thought my experience may help?

hope it gets sorted,

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Was that an Spi or Mpi car?
I know that leaving the power on when doing this kind of thing can set of the light (have had that reset when I installed gauges in the past) but I disconnected the battery & all I swapped was the dial unit, the reason I don't want to swap back unless I HAVE TO is when I removed the old clock mechanism I tried removing the needles to repair/replace the painted on dials & broke the black surround from one of the needles

MPI 2002 seicento sporting, it was a pain when changing the dials over, my rev counter is reading slighty lower then it should but other then that its all good. are the dials you now have on your car compatible for an airbag?

The cars are only 6 months apart, my original car that I scrapped was an 03 plate, the new one a 53 plate & they are indentical models with the same type of main ECU.

If the Airbag system is 100% seperate then I'm certain that matching up my old airbag ECU will work, but as it looks like the dials have some kind of coding to match them to the airbag ECU I am worried that the dials may also have some kind of coding to match them to the main ECU as well which might cause me other problems durther down the line?

Thing that made me wonder is how they are wired up - anyone happen to know if the airbag reset is still done from the OBDII plug below the fusebox & if so is it a seperate cable that runs from the airbag ECU to the said port?

when my airbag warning light was reset it was reset from under the fuse box,

I can't see anything in the documentation to suggest that the airbag is connected to the ECU or that the airbag control is part of the ODB2 set up.

To my mind its more likely to be a simple(ish) connection issue.

Thanks for the PM Kristian, sounds like it makes sense to me - I'll update the thread when I've tried swapping the airbag ECU over to let people know if it works.

kritip said:

The reset is done via the obd port, but its not a "regular" standardised pin, its another pin that only goes to the airbag ecu. There is no link whatsover with the main ecu.

If you swap the unit over though, disconnect the battery first, else it will throw another code!

Smiler121 said:

If it is 100% independant then I'll just swap my old airbag ECU in & I should be OK, the actual crash did not trigger the airbag - I think it is showing a fault due to the incorrect combination of units.

I am just kinda worried by the engineers wording (I suppose not knowing what I'd swapped) He said it could also be an ECU fault & the way He described it made it sound like everything runs through the ECU but if the reset is actually done by a seperate cable running to the OBDII port then I'll be fine & would explain why normal OBD software won't handle it.

I had mine reset once in the past when I installed my gauges.

Many thanks,
Paul.

kritip said:

If it's the electronic airbag system, its 100% independant from the ECU.

The airbag ecu is in front of the gear lever, with two connectors, and the actuall airbag signal wire.

Did it come to you with the airbag light on?

I have an airbag ecu, yellow deployment wire, and airbag for an mpi that i removed from mine. Last time i removed it, it was working fine, and there was no code on. Could be worth trying to sway some of/all of that into yours. Hopefully work ok then

THey did reset mine fine when i triggered the light oonce.

Cheers,

Kristian.

Smiler121 said:

Hiya Kristian, though you might have a bit more of a clue!

I have been told by Research Nuneaton that they can't reset my airbag light & can't actually tell why, do you happen to know if on an MPi the unit that controls the Airbag is also connected to the main ECU?

The only thing I swapped over is the unit for the dials, so was wondering if matching up the old airbag control unit would solve the problem but I don't want to swap it, pay another £25 & find out that the main ECU not matching something in the Dials is the culprit

https://www.fiatforum.com/cinquecento-seicento/212961-airbag-light-linked-main-ecu.html?p=2272102

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Have swapped the Airbag ECU from my old car into the new one & it definately seems that the dash unit has to match the Airbag ECU as the light is now out & everything is working perfectly again

Phew - according to FIAT a replacement Airbag ECU costs nearly £300 & I've no idea how much a dash pod costs!!!