AIRBAG ECUs DEFECTIVE!

The airbag light in my '97 550 is on now. Funny thing is my son's '97 BMW M3 airbag light is on now, too. This leads me to believe that on both cars this is a time-interval thing; both cars having this issue after 15 years.

 

Not that I've seen with an SD2. Most likely, there will be a voltage triggered fault or total comms failure associated with jump-starting.

 

ON BMW's of those years airbag light is very common problem. Most of the time the problem is related with the driver or passenger buckle switch. The time interval thing that you mention is applicable to the oldest generation of airbags, where the "explosive" inside the airbag was a primitive solid propellant or chemical gas generator composition. Today's day vehicles doesn't have an explicit "life span" An improved Sodium Perchlorate, Nitrogen gas, Argon gas, etc is now inside of airbag as an "inflation device"... The problem with the Ferrari airbag issue is, in 90% of the situations, is a SOFTWARE problem caused for the extreme low voltage that mess with the eeprom memory. It and can be fixed. I do work with airbags, as part of my business since many years now.....and I do not remember just ONE case of a vehicle with an airbag light on due to the "expired system". As you notice...English isn't my native language...... but I keep working on it!

 

The airbag light is on in my 355. It was that way when I bought it. I think the guys at the dealership probably let the battery get low. I used that against them when I was negotiating on price. I hate to have to pay the big money that a new ECU costs but my inspection is coming due soon. If it is a problem with the EEPROM losing it's data due to low voltage I wonder if someone could come up with a way to copy the data from a functional ECU to a dead one similiar to what gobble does with the key fobs.

 

Nope... It's fried and there is nothing you can do about it other then cough up the dough and replace it. The only thing you can do is put tape over the light so you don't see it, that will fix for good!!

All these cars as mentioned should not be jumped started ever!!

 

So, I'm very curious reading all these threads related to F355 airbag ECU failures what their specific failure codes are?

My '96 F355 spider airbag light came on 'out of the blue' a few months ago, so i retrieved the blink codes. I got a "6" and a "7". There are 9 specific failure codes, but #6 is related to 'wrong passenger side airbag resistance' and #7 is related to 'low battery voltage'.

So, I followed the reset procedure for each, and was able to reset #7. #6 still remains. I double checked the input impedance to the ECU with the passengers side disconnected, and I measure about 800 ohms. Seems reasonable. with the cable removed at the ECU, it measures 0 ohms, which is good because this means the shorting bar works and suggests the cable is fine. I substituted a 3 ohm load for the disconnected airbag, but still get #6. So, there could be some issue with the ECU, or airbag, but I'm curious as to what blink codes others had when they've experienced the airbag light coming on?

 

I have heard airbag's are certified for 10 years, and then some/all? extended to 15 years. You are bumping up against 17/18 years. Either the airbags are original, or the Ferrari "has stories"

Does the explosive charge degrade over time? Seems reasonable to think so and the resistance may go out of spec because of it.

 

Nobody knows how long the airbags will last. Ferrari had enough data to extend the life from 10 to 15 years on all models. Perhaps later they will be extended again. No intention of replacing mine because not much difference between a 15 year old airbag installed and one sitting on a shelf for 15 years.
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Yes, I've read in the manual that the airbags must be replaced after 10 years. On the more "common" cars I own, you won't see this type of text anywhere. So, it's the sort of thing you read and then raise an eyebrow to say the least. I'm guessing that the statement is more of a liability and legally driven print for some particular reason. And, let's not forget that if you purchase a Ferrari, and you MUST bring it in to the dealer to have the airbags replaced in 10 years, then revenue is flowing into the Ferrari mothership, not to mention there 'might' be other recommendations of service while such a mandatory routine is carried out. In all seriousness however, an airbag will not perform the same in a thousand years from now as it will a year after it is made....so, the line has to be drawn somewhere. If you jump out of a plane, do you want a parachute packed today, or 9 years ago? Let's face it, most Ferrari owners do not drive like they are taking the minivan to the grocery store to get diapers.
Regardless, I just simply do not believe that the resistance of the squib ignitor degrades within 10 or even 15 years. ...what would cause it to degrade? makes no sense...
Has anyone else observed the actual blink codes associated with their airbag light turning on? if so, what codes did you have?

 

In may my airbag light came on for the first time. Initially it would go off in restart of the car then it persisted. I took it to Classic Coach and they cleared the light for me. This is what the SD2 screen looked like in my case.

Now August and it hasn't reappeared yet
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I am interested in how you were able to get blink codes. I also have a 96 spider and have never been able to get blink codes.

 

Thanks for sharing this screenshot drbob! really cool to see the results from the SD2. It's good feedback since you also had the low battery code, and looks like a faulty indicator light. did they have to do anything to the indicator light, or did they simply clear the errors?

 

Do Car Airbags Expire?

Published: 03/29/2013 - by Ronald Montoya, Consumer Advice Editor

A car airbag has a strange life. It spends most of its time in hiding until our lives depend on it. Then it springs into action for a few seconds, fulfills its destiny and passes away.

That's not always the story for the noble airbag, and that's a good thing for car owners. In most cars and trucks, airbags never see the light of day. But do these important safety components stand the test of time? Eventually, most things break down on a car. Are airbags any different? The answer is yes — and no.

In early uses of car airbags, a few automakers called for an inspection or replacement after a number of years. But modern technology has enabled airbags to last the life of the vehicle in which they're installed.

The Early Days of Airbags
Car airbags are part of a vehicle's supplemental restraint system (SRS). They have been around since the 1970s and are now standard equipment on every vehicle. Since airbags were new technology then, a number of automakers erred on the side of caution when estimating their lifespan. The owner's manual on early-1990s Honda and Acura vehicles, for example, recommended a dealer inspection of airbags every 10 years.

"That inspection was simply a visual inspection and a confirmation that the self-diagnostic functions were working properly," says Chris Martin, spokesman for American Honda.

Mercedes-Benz, on the other hand, was a bit more conservative. The automaker installed airbag replacement labels on all vehicles sold in the U.S. through roughly 2002, says Diedra Wylie, a spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz. The labels called for new airbags at the 15-year mark. After 2002, Mercedes research concluded that the airbags it produced after January 1, 1992 would last the life of the vehicle, Wylie says.

"Advances in airbag module technology now ensure the lifelong, functional reliability of the airbags," says Wylie.

In pre-1992 Mercedes vehicles with airbags, the part needs to be replaced after 15 years. The vehicle's owner will have to foot the bill of roughly $2,000.

Does an Airbag Expire?
While some automakers have set time limits on when to replace an airbag, the actual components are extremely durable. The key difference is the type of seal used to house the airbag igniter, also known as the squib.

"Almost all squibs since Day One have used what is called 'glass-to-metal' sealing, which is the best for moisture protection," says Douglas Campbell, who is president of the Automotive Safety Council and has worked in the airbag industry for more than 25 years.

"Some earlier non-North American models may have used 'plastic-to-metal' seals, which would have passed the vehicle life tests, but are considered to be potentially not as robust in extreme testing," Campbell says.

Leo Knowlden, a field performance assessment engineer for General Motors, said that GM has used glass-to-metal seals on all its airbags since the very beginning. A plastic-to-metal seal is more likely to accumulate moisture over the years, Knowlden says. This can lead to corrosion of the electrical pins in the igniter and potentially lead to a less responsive airbag.

As proof of the lifetime durability of GM airbags, Knowlden pointed to a 1992 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study, where a rusty 1972 Chevrolet Impala was crash-tested and both the driver's airbag and passenger airbag successfully deployed. That Impala was one of the first 1,000 airbag-equipped cars made by GM.

And similarly, "airbags from 1990s vehicles are operating correctly in today's accidents," says Campbell.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) knows of successful deployments of airbags more than 30 years after production, says Jose Ucles, a NHTSA spokesperson.

The Self-Diagnostic Function
The burden of determining whether a car airbag is working properly isn't on the vehicle's owner. Nearly every vehicle equipped with an airbag has a diagnostic function and an SRS indicator light that signals when there is a problem.

"When you start your car, the SRS light comes on a short period and then goes off as the self-diagnostic is completed by the computer," says Martin. "If the light either never comes up [at start-up] or comes on and stays on, then it can indicate a problem with the system."

In GM cars, the self-diagnostic function checks the system 10 times a second, says Brian Everest, GM's senior consultant for major accident reconstruction.

The Modern Airbag Era
Knowlden defines the modern era of airbags as the period starting in the late 1980s, when federal legislation was proposed to make airbags mandatory. Dual airbags were required on all new cars beginning with the 1998 model year. Light trucks followed a year later.

Edmunds contacted Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo for this article and all confirmed that their current airbags will last the life of the vehicle. Replacement labels and recommended dealer inspections are largely a thing of the past, carmakers say.

"Now that we have many years of experience with the self-diagnostic systems, the dealer inspection is not really necessary," Martin says.

Airbag Tips for Consumers
If the SRS light in your car has come on or gone dark, take the car to the dealer as soon as possible. Unlike seatbelts, which sometimes have lifetime warranties (as in Honda vehicles, for example) car airbags only are covered by the new-car limited warranty.
If you have an airbag-equipped car from the late 1980s to mid-1990s, make sure you check the owner's manual to see if the automaker calls for an airbag replacement or inspection. If you don't know where the manual is, our story, "How To Find Your Car's Owner's Manual Online," can help you track it down. Other places to check for airbag information are on the driver-side door jamb and on the back of the sun visors.
Make sure you check the SRS light on a used car when inspecting it for purchase. Make sure you also check the seams of the airbag modules to see if anything looks misshapen or out of place.
NHTSA has warned that since 2009, authentic-looking but extremely dangerous counterfeit airbags from China have been illegally imported to the U.S., where they have been offered for sale online and might have been installed as replacement airbags by some unscrupulous collision repair shops. Car owners should be cautious both in choosing a collision repair shop and in confirming the source of parts used in the repair, NHTSA warns.
The only replacement airbag that can be guaranteed to be safe is an original equipment unit purchased from the automaker through a new-car dealership. There are no legitimate "aftermarket" airbags from third-party suppliers, experts say. But automotive recyclers retrieve never-deployed airbags from scrapped autos and sell them as replacement parts to collision repair shops. It's perfectly legal, but some critics say the practice can be dangerous and caution consumers to shop carefully.
Trust the Automakers
In the early years of airbags, their reliability was based upon lab simulations, and carmakers cautioned owners accordingly. But now vehicle manufacturers are more confident, Campbell says. They have produced millions of airbags and have more than 25 years of real-world experience.

 

This is covered in the workshop manual. I'm actually a little surprised that there doesn't seem to be anyone out there retrieving codes this way, as it's pretty easy, and you don't need an SD!
In the footwell of the passenger side, open the access panel to fuse/relay block area. There is a cable coming from the airbag ECU that terminates in a 3-pin header. (there are actually two different cables terminating in 3-pin headers in the footwell -but, the one from the airbag ECU has one of its pins offset and separated by a 'line' molded in the plastic header. This is pin #1) It has a plastic cover on the end. Remove the plastic cover. The procedure to retrieve the codes is straightforward. Insert the ignition key and move to position "II". Next, shunt pin #1 of this header to ground for 1 to 5 seconds (I count to 2). Release the connection to ground at watch the airbag light. It will blink the first code. Repeat the process, and the airbag light will blink the next code. Repeat, and it will eventually cycle back to the beginning. If there is only one code, it will obviously only blink that one code. To clear the code(s) You shunt the same pin to ground for 5-10 seconds. Easy. Of course, if there is a fault that is truly present, the ECU will detect it after it is reset and will still display the error. So, as long as the fault is remedied, you should be able to afterward clear the code(s).

There are 9 possible code -8 of them actual errors. This correlates to the screenshot that drbob provided.

as worded in the workshop manual:

#1 None
#2 Faulty sensor
#3 Airbag starting circuit short-circuited towards battery +
#4 Airbag starting circuit short-circuited towards ground
#5 Wrong driver's side airbag resistance
#6 Wrong passenger's side airbag resistance
#7 Low battery voltage
#8 Faulty warning light or circuits
#9 Stored crash data

The manual adds that the only code which can not be cleared this way is #9 which, makes sense.

I'll add some pictures of the header etc this weekend to make this more clear.

Cheers

 

thanks for posting this, KKSBA -informative and a good read.

 

They simply cleared the code and Carlos , their head guy, said if it comes back its the harness or the ECU. He also told me to take that picture for future reference.

So far it hasn't come back. I do not recall a specific precipatory event such as low charged battery or slow starter revs.

 

anyone have any blink codes to share?

 

One would think that but the truth is modern car ecus are made to a budget (cheap components and design), this budget excludes proper power supply filtering and this is why so many car ecus are dieing these days, hardware failure, software corruption, I see it everyday at work. Hacking car ecus is a passion of mine and my job. Ferraris electrics are amazing compared to Peugeot and Citroen, the 2 worst cars ever built in the whole entire world. If you want an unreliable poor quality car which is 99% guaranteed to die if the battery goes flat then a Peugeot or Citroen is the car for you to buy, you cant pick on Ferraris and other Italian car electrics until you have worked on Peugeots and Citroens, its then when you will realise how good Italian car electrics actually are.

 

I am an EE, I've designed circuits for over 20 years, and I lead the hardware engineering department for a large company. I certainly understand cost considerations when it comes to circuit design. I certainly understand other design considerations including filtering, susceptibility, immunity, agency compliance including safety, etc. Now, admittedly, I have not personally [yet!] 'dug into' the German designed and manufactured TRW airbag ECU which is in my car, but at this stage I prefer not to make assumptions, suggest root cause, or draw conclusions related to these particular ECU's 'dying'. I haven't seen any concrete evidence- only speculation and assumptions.
I believe that we Ferrari owners can make real progress here, and I'm willing to try and help. The fact is that there are a number of things that can set the airbag light. One is low battery voltage, which has a pretty high probability of happening. In some of the scenarios described earlier, primarily situations along the line of relating to starting a car with a weak battery and having the airbag light come on, it is possible that the fault is 'low battery voltage' and that is the only fault. However, there is a lot of discussion that the ECU 'died' and needed to be replaced. What I'm mostly interested in is, when did the airbag light come on, what were the exact failure codes? It is of course possible that an ECU may have 'died', but the error codes would reflect that. In this thread, only the initial author described his light coming on and that it reflected ECU failure and that clearing the error was not possible. Was it error #2 and only error #2? No one else in this thread has indicated that they had an actual ECU failure and what the specific error codes were...
So, I'm very interested to know specifically if anyone has experienced an ECU failure and what the actual error codes were that were read from the car? Did they witness the read error codes first hand?

 

Bonjour
Pouvez vous me dire ou se trouve le boitier airbag sur F355 ? si des photos Merci

 

Que veux-tu dire par boitier? Est-ce que tu veux savoir où il se trouve?

 

C'est bon j'ai trouvé. Il est dans la console juste devant le levier de vitesses. Boitier Sensore Airbag TRW 169710. Merci

 

Has any progress been made on this topic in the last few years? I have a 1999 355 with a dead airbag ECU and looking for solutions. Thanks to anyone that can help!

 

How do you know its dead?


Have you got it reset by an sd computer??

 

No. There is a company here in Texas that advertises rebuilding of them but rebuilding is not considered an industry accepted repair. As such any professional who chooses to install one is on his own if there is a failure. My liability is minimal if I tell you I can't fix your car but my liability is total if I use a non approved method and someone is hurt as a result.

Last I asked Ferrari and someone else asked TRW, both responded they are not available and there are no plans to produce more.