General Airbag light issues.

[murfman53]

Firstly hi to all,
Been awhile since I've posted on here, but need your assistance and advice.
As the title says airbag light on all the time. I've seen posts here suggesting cover the light, remove the power supply to airbag ecu, place resistor between dashboard light and ecu etc. Here in ireland the national testers are now awhere of all the tricks being used, and now the cat is out of the bag.
I brought the car to a Fiat dealer and was told they couldn't find anything wrong, even though it was blinding obvious the light was still on!!!
I then brought it to a mechanic, and he said he checked the circuit readings, wiring, ohm readings, pretentioners and so on. He seemed very througher he what he was doing, and said that a flaw in a resistor on one of the control units within the airbag ecu. A replacement ecu was the answer.
I priced the ecu from a Fiat dealer....wait for it................hope your sitting comfortably.............................587 euros!!!! I was too scared to ask if that included VAT. I put the phone down straight away!!!
The car is a Fiat Marea 2001 1.9 jtd sx estate 110. I removed the ecu to get the number of the unit, and its, 467 89398.
Not very easy to locate but found on the internet that a Alpha Romeo 1.6L has the same number.
Was chatting to a Fiat man this evening (lovely guy, David), and he's selling an ecu from a Marea same spec as mine, but the numer is different. I was going to buy it from him, but he suggested I place a thread here first to see your opinions on the matter. That I thought that was very genuine of him, and very good advice.
So to recap, would an ecu with a different number work on my marea, although both cars have the same spec.
The number of his ecu is 468 11840.
That's all the details I know at this time, but if discover anymore I'll place it on this thread.
Thanks a million for looking.
John.

 

[Neverth]

Did they reset the box?
If there has been a fault in the system, you need to reset it on marea/bravo.
Stilo has system that disables the fault light once the problem is gone just keeps it in memory.

As for spec, I think you need need ecu from car with same amount of bags and I think the belt tensioners need to be same type (mechanical on older, electric trigger on newer models).
Look for bravo/brava/marea ecus as they all share the same stuff.

 

[murfman53]

Hi Neverth,
Thanks for your comments. Since my last post, I managed to get a secondhand ecu with the same number. Cost 40 euros. Brought it back home, and fitted it straight away. It worked a treat, but just to make sure, I brought it over to a mechanic friend who checked it out for me, and he said no problems with it all. 100%. Delighted with the outcome. I'm going to get another one to see if it works as well. Different number, but has exactly the same spec. It should work no problem, but I won't know until I put it in place.
Was chatting to the mechanic about the fault being cleared, but he was convinced that because the resistor was blown, the fault within the ecu could never clear the fault, and the airbag light would never go out. My knowledge of diagnostics is very limited, so I'm unable to give an honest opinion. I plan downloading the fiatecuscan and later with some help decide which cables I'm going to need.
I'm old school, but its impossible to find some problems unless you have some knowledge of diagnostics.
Again thanks for your advice and assistance Neverth.
John.