Hi all,

Longtime dumper first time poster. I've had my airbag light on since I bought my 2006 3.3 GC a year ago (somehow passed NH state inspection w/ the light on), but now I'm up for re-inspection. The windshieldleaked pretty badly (who knows for how long) which made it rain on my feet, but I replaced it within a month or so. I'd read about bad clocksprings and such but wanted to get a more precise diagnosis, so I got me an OBD II reader with SRS capabilities.

Under the SRS codes, I wound up with: 0220 Loss of left up-front SAS communication, 0257 No OCM message, 0052 PAB disable warning lamp open/short to ground, 0021 loss of ignition run/start. I've puttered around with it, all fuses seem to be good, wiggled the hell out of the connectors under the seats, pulled back the plastic housing between the seat and the door, but haven't been able to find any visible corrosion.

I've heard of people finding corrosion on the underside of the fusebox module but I recall pulling it some time ago and seeing nothing suspicious.

I'm a bit of an amateur at this, so I guess I'm looking for some guidance as far as where to start really looking, or maybe some diagrams? My Haynes seems to be absent of the only wiring diagram I've ever needed for this thing.

Any insight or guidance would be greatly appreciated, as I'm currently 20 days past inspection and can't afford to bring the thing to the dealer.

 

Start by checking for good power and ground at the Occupant Restraint Controller. If you want to play like a real mechanic, chuck your Haynes manual and get a real shop manual with real wiring diagrams. Alldatadiy.com or eautorepair.net. You need really good info is you want to do this kind of diagnostic work.

 

Thanks! Got the alldata, very informative thus far. I read somewhere that using a multimeter to check powered lines within the airbag circuit can be risky, as, according to somewhere I read on the internet, some multimeters will give off a slight amount of juice which might trigger one of the airbags... any truth to this or experiences testing the circuit while powered?

 

If you're going to check the air bag circuits live, you want to back probe connectors and read voltage. If you want to check for continuity/resistance, you need to have both ends of the circuit disconnected. For example, if you wanted to check continuity between the ORC and the left front SAS, you would need the ORC and the LF SAS disconnected.

To make sure the air bag circuits are powered down, disconnect the battery (both negative and positive) and wait 2 minutes - this gives the capacitors in the ORC time to discharge and completely kill the circuit. Then it's safe to proceed with testing.

ALL multimeters power a circuit with about 2 volts when doing continuity and resistance tests - it's because there has to be some level of current flow to measure the resistance in the circuit. Realistically, 2 volts shouldn't be enough to discharge an air bag, but since some freak situation could (in theory) cause it to happen, it's always advised to make sure the air bag circuits are disabled for diagnosis or service.