Sad to report that my recent purchase of a 2010 599 HGTE has rapidly turned sour. (good news story here http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/612-599/479045-v8-v12.html ) When I picked the car up from dealer it was mentioned that some "intermittent" airbag crash sensor codes were showing on diagnostics (not enough to light the dash light). Just "in case" the dealer replaced the front right crash sensor. I drove the car for a couple of hours then parked for a stop. On restart the airbag warning light came up on the dash. Spoke to dealer and they agreed to have car taken back for repair - but since the nearest dealer for me is just 50 miles away (and the selling dealer is 450 miles away) they agreed to ship it to local dealer instead. Meanwhile logged in to the Ferrari owners website - where they provide dealer visit history of the vehicle. I see a whole run of visits to the original importing dealership (yes that makes three dealers involved so far). Had not been mentioned to me - when I asked my local service manager it turns out the car had already had two front right and one front left sensor fitted in the months prior to trade-in.. Next a basic wiring check revealed no broken wires. However the airbag warning recurred twice while with my local dealer - an intermittent fault but seems to occur at engine start. So the next move was to replace the airbag ecu. Unfortunately I have now heard this has not improved the situation - still getting airbag light ( I assume it will be throwing the same code for right front sensor). So the dilemma - I can still hand the car back, or I can try enduring further "diagnostics" to try and ascertain the root cause. I am not sure whether the car has always carried this fault or if it started 18 months or so back. I see no similar faults in any of the forums so it is evidently not "common". Any thoughts you care to share - I am leaning towards a refund right now...?
Update on this - I have agreed to allow the dealer(s) to spend a short further period trying to diagnose connectivity problem between airbag ecu and crash sensor. If they cannot find and fix the problem then sadly I will have to let this car go.
Does your car have parking sensors? If so ask them to check them. I know it sounds weird, but I had all kinds of crazy errors due to a bad parking sensor. Made the computer go crazy. Diagnosed and replaced the sensor and no more wild reports of failures. I'm sorry this happened to you. Hopefully they can figure it out.
That's a shame. Beautiful car and excited owner, to be washed out with an early problem. I have no helpful words other than I hope they can find the issue and resolve it.
Thanks all - any advice or ideas appreciated at this time. Yes - the car has front and rear parking sensors Caeruleus11, how did you know they were a source of faults - did they show faults on computer or dash? My car (?) when it throws the fault shows an intermittent fault on the front right crash sensor. Did the parking sensor cause consistent fault codes or "random" spurious codes? I have asked the dealer to tell me their proposed approach to investigating the connectivity between ecu and sensor - but there is always the possibility as you say that some other factor is at play?
I was just wondering about that. I think (I could be way off base here) that the airbag and belt tensioner systems are standalone for a couple of reasons actually. I have not had to do any electrical on a 599 so do not know.
My Hyundai DD has had a recall for the seat belt receptacle that, as I recall, triggered the air bag warning on the dash.
Of course in these circumstances one tends to become an "expert" on the problem! I am informed that for safety reasons the airbag system and harnesses are separate from the main wiring in the vehicle. So if necessary the airbag system wiring could be replaced without (much) disturbance. However significant labor charges will be involved in the exercise (and with no absolute guarantee of success - e.g. the wiring is ok and some obtuse problem elsewhere is causing the airbag ecu to false?) My "research" reveals that many cars have airbag light issues - but for the mass-produced ones there are many more examples where typical weaknesses are exposed (usually connectors not making good contact in the wiring). Unfortunately I have not found any other similar fault stories on the 599 forums. If anyone knows of a similar issue I would be very happy to listen to the story... (I have yet to hear from them on their proposed plan to diagnose the problem.)
I would walk away. I have spent a lot of time on CAN bus and Flex Ray systems and this problem can be solved but it will be a lot of trial and error. This is not a rare car, you can find another one.
If its a separate system as noted then I'd move on. I know about the parking sensors because one day I was driving my 599, going along just fine when the display went crazy with following failures: transmission, menettino, SCM/magniride, and I think also ABS & traction control. I don't recall it showing airbag error, but it could have. It was many errors. I pulled over. Turned the car off, waited 5 minutes, turned the car on, no problems. I drove the car for another week or so and then again, same errors, just randomly coming on. Car seemed fine. So rather than take a chance I brought it to the dealer and they checked out the car's computer logs and it showed one of the front parking sensors had failed due to an impact by a small pebble (likely at highway speeds) and this failure was causing a cascade of errors of the other systems and in fact those systems were actually fine.
I had that airbag light on my gto too, took it in the dealer, dealer spend two days taking my glove box out and locating an oxidized connection of the wires and sensor, they cleaned it and put it all back together, test drove it and whuuuueee done No parts or sensors need replacing, because dealer said the connectors get old and get oxidized, just needed to clean the ports. Total labor cost $200+, I guess that's lucky So don't worry too much, plus I been driving around with the light on for a while worrying the airbags might go off, but turn out to be nothing. It's a common issue I'm told.
Actually, when the airbag light is on, the airbags are not going to ever accidentally fire. In fact, with the light on, they are never going to fire. That's the concern.
Quite so - having no airbags is the main concern. Although apparently it may depend upon the severity of the error picked up by the ecu i.e. not every fault code will disarm the airbag system. Also there are codes for "intermitent" faults. In fact when I picked up the car I was told that these codes had been found by the diagnostic computer but there had not been enough to trigger the dash light error. Guess it accumulates these occasional short-lived faults until it decides it is too risky to ignore and raises a full fault code. It does look like a bad connection in the wiring somewhere. Having replaced both the sensor and the ecu the dealer has swapped wiring from left to tight side of car for part of the airbag harness in order to try and trap a code on the other side - which would imply the swapped wires are the weak link. Trial and error. But of course having disturbed ,and possibly made good, the connections the light now refuses to return. Likely Outcomes: 1 - error returns on other side of system - replace the harness which was swapped over. 2 - error returns on same side - assume the remaining harness is the culprit (replace?) 3 - error does not return with dealer tests - assume the wiring which was moved was not making a good contact , and now is? I think this is in order of preferred outcomes since 1 is a positive diagnosis and fix, 2 will require further work/time and 3 always leaves the concern that the problem is still in there! (Obviously if they find some visible damage in the connections they can address - but I have not heard that so far.)
Thanks Johns930 - I don't feel so "alone" any more! Would be interested to compare the dealer approaches. I now know (per original post) that three Ferrari UK dealers have diagnosed this airbag light issue. They all did the same thing - pull ecu code, possible sensor fail so replace sensor. The first dealer replaced three and never made progress (not impressive!) The second dealer did not (they say) know about this history (not impressive!) and fitted yet another sensor. The same diagnosis from the third dealer - but I already told them it was not a sensor. They automatically went for the ecu replacement before tackling wires. I assume avoidance of unnecessary labor charges drive this. Now I note you say it took 2 days to fix your GTO - but I have not seen my car in 17 days (not including the 7 days it took before they even took it in) and it is likely to be at least another 5 before I do. Did your car actually get repaired in two days - is that a priority call for the GTO, or are UK dealers just a bit hopeless at technical stuff? (dont see your location but from the currency and spelling I guess your car is in the US?)
Ok first off I'm used to engine lights, tpms, and all sorts of Xmas lights and I don't really care. I usually swap wheels so I never know where my tire sensor went, engine lights in Fcars is common due to the environmental pollution whatever sensors, etc... Ok back to the airbag one, I went to my dealer in taiwan several times to "delete" the light on their blue tooth computer but it always came back, keep in mind this process take 20+ minutes, so I finally made an appointment because they said they have to get to it by pulling some interior trims which will take sometime which I usually can't wait for the car. Ok the day came and they check all the connection and when out and the light still came, so they kept it for another day, cleaning and looking at all the connectors in the area which I think they said the diagnosis computer told them to look which is near the glove box area. Oxidation and age was the official reason for the light to come on by my official dealer, just clean it and that's it! Is what they said exactly! But getting to the connectors and everything took nearly 2 days. Now it never comes on, if it does we all know what to do now.
Just to remind me that I did trade my GranSport and am not imagining all this - a picture of the moment of the trade... I hope to be re-acquainted soon (with one of them!) Image Unavailable, Please Login
So... no airbag lights since left/right connectors switched around on the (now infamous?) airbag connector on the right side of the bulkhead. Big move now (UK dealer is under pain of death from angry customer... me!) swap connectors back (cleaned and tightened to the max). Two more days of tests and then... hopefully sorted! We dont rush these things here.. even as another two glorious sunny spring days disappear without so much as a loan car! Pray for me if that is your way...
