Good afternoon. I read through all the posts that were responsive to a search on this subject. It seems some had made some progress in locating new ECUs and others were working toward locating someone who could rebuild them. Then the trail went cold. My car's airbag light is now on and I'm on the hunt to reset/repair/rebuild/replace the ECU. My mechanic and the local Ferrari dealers were not able to "communicate" with the ECU with the usual diagnostic tools. Has anyone come up with a solution or am I destined to drive around with a red light on the dash?
Question: If you change airbags, does that affect the airbag light? That is, is there any 'pairing' occurring? Thanks. Frank
I am no lawyer but if in fact Ferrari and TRW have both told us they are not supplied now and there is no plan to supply them in the future (and they have) that would seem to put any reasonable effort on our part to maintain the operation of a primary safety system in the realm of "good faith effort" and place responsibility on the rebuilder. It isn't a perfect world and any of us can be sued at any time for anything but at some point we need to get on with life. Replacement with a new unit was considered the commercially acceptable repair method. That option is no longer available to us. There is no perfect solution to the problem as it stands. We can choose to knowingly have a nonfunctional air bag system or make a reasonable attempt to maintain it.
We had a persistent SRS (Safety Restraint System/seatbelt) light on our 550. We knew the SRS was fine but the code was thrown (we caused it) and because it's a factory code it's not trivial to clear. We took the car to a factory shop and they could not communicate with the airbag ECU using Ferrari's own SD2/3. This seemed peculiar but after an hour they just gave up, charged us, and sent us on our way. A couple weeks later a local independent shop with a Leonardo easily cleared the code. Turns out the factory shop had plugged in their computer incorrectly. Inexcusable.
It doesn't look like Ricambi, our title sponsor, has one, but I know that MPI Ferrari had one... I sold it to them. NOS. Part No. is 164645. Their website is: Ferrari and Italian Sports Car Restorer I'd give them a call. Mike
Many of the dealerships have nobody who knows how to work on anything much earlier than an F430, especially if it requires cables other than an OBDII connector.
To Terry's important and very useful point. When we took the 550 into the factory shop for the SRS light reset I had the opportunity to watch the tech with the SD attempt the reset. He tried to do it, as he sat in the driver's seat, by connecting the Ferrari computer to the OBDII. He then spent much of the next expensive hour fiddling with the computer after which he announced, as if it was the car's fault, that the factory computer couldn't communicate with the SRS. I learned later it's a different system and that trying to correct a 550 SRS fault through the OBDII is simply not possible; the systems don't touch and the SRS is reached via an entirely different test port on the other side of the car. When I described this scene to the fellow that later fixed the problem (easily) he laughed quietly and nodded knowingly. Thus is the grace and beauty of true expertise which is, unfortunately, a rare and beautiful thing to see.
Someone who knows their way around Washington should contact the DOT and see if we can get a factory recall to force them to supply the ECUs because of the dangers of the Airbags not working. Chuck
Thanks very much, gentlemen. I have passed the contact info for Motion Products to my mechanic (he will contact them) as well as the non-OBDII port for clearing the code in the first place. Thanks again!
The airbag diagnose port on European 550s can be found behind the glove box It is a tree pin connector but with only 2 wires connected Fairly fat yellow cable with black yellow connector and an end cap The same connector can be found in many FIAT products In your diagnose software look for anything that says Twr my 97 Alfa 147 FIAT Punto come to mind I do have the impression that not all generic diagnose software is able to handle the twr codes Good luck
