ongoing airbag light issues?
 

Has anyone else had ongoing airbag light issues? I will be taking my car in for the third time to try to get the problem resolved. I have a two year old and a pregnant wife, I can't accept the fact that the airbag "might" not deploy if we are in an accident. My other issue is I was on the freeway the other day and hit a bump at 75, the car changed lanes on me. Jumped completely over into the right lane. I had complained about a "bump steer" and a shudder going over bumps, but this is a little extreme in my book. Coupled with the fact that I have $4000 in audio equipment in the car and I still can't get rid of that high pitch humming noise. I am getting ready to drive the car back to the dealer and stuff it up their Ar$e.

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

What issue? I did notice that when something leans on the back of the seats, the light comes on to say it's off. Bump steer I have not seen. My Magnum has been perfect from day one, I still have not had anything go wrong. $4000 in audio gear? I thought Pioneer was picking up that tab. Sounds like someone screwed up the install with cheap wires and bad connections.

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

I would love to see what $4000 in audio gear looks like in the Magnum. How about posting some pictures?

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

MIght not look like much. I just dropped $3500.00 on mine. Put in an Alpine 9835 head unit, Alpine 6-disc changer, Kicker 350.2 amp, MB Quart speakers to replace the factory ones, Kicker 10" L7 in a factory made ported box, IPOD unit attached to the 9835, and am currently waiting on my Sirius radio receiver to come in. Doesn't look like much but the sound is just incredible.

I forgot to include my 7" widescreen DVD player! duh!!!

And I have absolutely zero noise, even when cranked with no source output. Nice and quiet.

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

Sikpuppy, "MIght not look like much", It looks like you went BIG. how about some pictures?

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

So get this, the dealer says " can bus cant recognize your radio, must be a bad install causing your airbag problem. The radio has been in the car over a month and it was doing it before the radio was swapped. I am getting the run around. I pulled all the audio stuff out and put a factory radio back in...SAME DAMN ISSUE. The canbus sure does recognize the radio now though, go figure. Lazy ass service tech at the dealer found an out and used it, blamed it on the radio. I tested every damn wire myself with a volt meter tonight. There are no shorts, no dead wires, and no wiring errors. As far as pictures go, I will post pictures as soon as I put everything back in. I took EVERYTHING out fo the car to troubleshoot my problem. I will be seeing that service tech tomorrow morning at 7:30am, I will be asking him to explain why I spent 4 hours uninstalling my whole system to find out what I already knew, there are no issues with my install. There is a problem with my airbag system that that just haven't been able to fix.

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

Still waiting to hear exactly what your air bag problem is. Also, just because in your expert opinion the stereo was installed correct doesn't mean anything to the tech working on it. You could not possibly begin to imagine the amount of work involved in tracing down CAN bus problems and the stereo is part of that circut. I would have made you remove it as well.

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

In your install, what did you wire to the Can Bus? You should have capped off the can bus wires and left them alone.
If you capped off the wires and left them alone, then the Can Bus would skip right over the radio. Recognizing it would not be the problem. I wouldn't get so mad at the service guy, they have know idea what you did or how you did it. It's your word that it's installed right, how are they supposed to know? One thing you have to know, when installing aftermarket stuff you take a huge chance of screwing up your car. You could have touched something, maybe pulled a wire out to far, crossed wires, who knows this very well could be your fault.


NOW WHAT AIR BAG PROBLEM?

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

Well thanks for all the positive feedback. NOT! How hard is it to install a stereo, honestly? If a unit is installed and working for a month and the problem exhists both prior to the install and resurfaces after the install (a month later) there is another issue OTHER than the radio. When you put weight on my passengers seat the warning light goes out. You take the weight out of the seat and it comes right back on. When you start the car the light comes on, goes out, and then you get the warning tone as the light comes back on. It is either a problem with the ground on the weight sensor, a short in the wiring to that sensor, a faulty sensor, or a bus malfunction with the computer. My local dealer has replace the clog spring and the connectors for the steering column and that appeared to fix it. But this is a different problem with the same system.

RE: ongoing airbag light issues?
 

Brian,

I have heard of several people having problems with the calibration of the air bag sensors. It seems it would be a no brainer to at least replace the existing sensors and reboot the computer to see if the problem remains.

The idea that it is the audio equipment is nuts[sm=icon_blah.gif]. If I had a nickle for each time a dealer's service people couldn't fix my car I'd own DC. That's why the legislators wrote lemon laws. I only go to the dealer now as a last resort. The local speciality shops generally have much more information and a far better attitude, not to mention much lower prices.

I've been associated with the car business all my life and so have may of those in my family. I am amazed at how fast the service department tries to tell us how difficult or complicated something is even with their exotic test and scan equipment. It almost seems that if they can get away with not fixing it they will. The idea of going the extra inch never seems to occur to them. Just ask for a loaner if they have to keep you car over night after thay have taken it all apart and didn't call to tell you that it was not driveable until 4:45 in the afternoon and now are waiting on a part they should have had in stock.

I love these forums thye give the general public a chance to help one another without the chaos of the dealer or manufacture. The free exchange of information is essential in thei over computerized world. I wish I could do more for you but I'll be with your struggle in spirit.[sm=hia.gif]