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3-Easy Steps to Airbag Light Defeat

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17K views 21 replies 16 participants last post by  mywong23 
#1 ·
1. Pull your cluster out and remove the airbag light. It's the one with the grey base. Yours probably isn't spray-painted black unless you tried spray-painting it to get rid of the light like I did. The spray-paint method doesn't work very well, I don't recommend it.


2. Get some appropriately sized heat-shrink and heat-shrink that **** around the bulb. Use something to pinch the end so it melts together.


3. Trim off the excess, pop the bulb back in, and put everything back together. Should look something like this.


4. There is no step 4 you sill guy! You're just puttin some heatshrink on a bulb, it's not that hard!

This is better than pulling the bulb completely because you don't get that buzzing sound from the dash telling you that the bulb is missing, cheaper than the garagestar delete if you've got some heatshrink lying around, and easily reversed. Hope someone finds this useful, cheers.
 
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#2 ·
Does emissions check for Air-Bag light functionality in CA? This will work great for states that don't check startup operations of the car.

Washington State does for reference.
 
#4 ·
They have us step out of the vehicle while they test emissions, they failed my rx-8 once due to my air-bag check light not turning off. Repaired it under warranty, but was odd.
 
#9 ·
I live in WA state and have never had people look at my engine light. In fact, I went in once with my check engine light on once, and the guy said, "we'll test it anyway, 90% of the time people pass)". Guess what? it still passed....

car with engine light on was a 93 mazda mx6

every time I've taken the miata in, I've been the one stepping on the gas. Now they don't even have you put the car on the dyno, they just have you rev it with the ebrake on. This is for OBDI of course
 
#14 ·
awful writeup; would fail inspection/emissions here.


the better writeup would be:

1. disconnect airbag.
2. measure ohms on airbag connector.
3. find a resistor that most closely matches.
4. install resistor in harness connector.
5. ???????
6. sell $0.50 worth of parts if for $12 like garage star and profit.
 
#17 ·
if you have a 90-93 you don't even need a resistor. just tie the two wires of the airbag connector together; light will operate as normal.


is there a worse place than California to get a smog check? My '91 passed with the airbag light flashing.
in VA they make sure the light operates, if it doesn't come on, or it flashes you fail both emission and/or inspection.
 
#21 ·
Alternatively, you can put a 2 ohm resistor in the plug that goes into the air bag. The airbag module only reads resistance to establish that the air bag is in place and functioning. By putting the resistor in place of the air bag the module thinks the air bag is there and the system functions normally as if the bag were there. This works on all airbag components, steering wheel bags, dash bags, side curtain bags, seat belt retractors, all of it. All airbag components read a resistance of around 2 ohms. Ford has even done this on factory vehicles with optional air bags, same wiring harness for all setups and factory resistor plug caps where airbags optional weren't used. Even a diagnostic scan with the best available equipment cant see the difference between an airbag and a resistor so even if you're in a state that would scan your car during an emission test no one would be the wiser. You would actually have to go looking for the air bag to realize it isnt there
 
#22 ·
I had replaced the blue module with a rebuilt one.
initially the air bag light went off.
but today, just came on for a few blinks, repeated few times;
then turned off....???

I'm pretty sure the fix to the original modules was to replace leaking
capacitors. I think some people sold rebuilts. as I had bought one
from a vendor (Rosenthal?) .
but this was many years ago.

I don't know if people still repair the modules or just blacken the light, as
described in this thread. If you just blacken the light, will the airbag still function
correctly?
 
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