Picasso 2004 airbag fault

[captainkephart]

Hi Marc and all,

Petrol 1600 DOHC Xsara Picasso 2009

This 'air bag fault' has suddenly appeared, yes left lock seems to trigger it.

When turn off and restart the engine, fault light goes out - and stays out with normal driving.
Can I ignore it (I need, of course, to travel for a week or so - why now?).

What is this 'wheel clock spring' thing. Looks a nightmare to repair (in winter especially).

Thanks, Captain K

[captainkephart]

Hi Marc,

Have looked into it a bit. No fault codes reported.

A couple of, hopefully clearer, questions:

1. If I ignore the airbag fault light for the moment (hate airbags anyway) will the car electronics / ECUs eventually time out in some way and cause bigger problems?

2. Can the wheel clock spring ribbon cable come loose completely (assuming there is some kind of fatigue / continuity fault here that might get worse)?

3. Is there a way of pinpointing the fault without removing the steering wheel and opening the clock spring unit?

Usual 'can I do this a painless way' OP hopes ...

Thanks, Captain K

[wheeler]

A couple of, hopefully clearer, questions:

1. If I ignore the airbag fault light for the moment (hate airbags anyway) will the car electronics / ECUs eventually time out in some way and cause bigger problems?

No, if the airbag light is on it will likely mean that the airbag will not deploy when its supposed to. The airbag light could be on indefinitely with no other issues.

2. Can the wheel clock spring ribbon cable come loose completely (assuming there is some kind of fatigue / continuity fault here that might get worse)?

The airbag rotary connector will either have a circuit or be open circuit, as it stands it’s sometimes making a connection & sometimes not, if the connection is already intermittent then eventually it will break completely, at this point the airbag light will be on all the time.

3. Is there a way of pinpointing the fault without removing the steering wheel and opening the clock spring unit?

You can narrow down the fault by using ’dummy’
Airbags, basically just resistors that make the system think there is an airbag in the circuit, you would plug it into the connector on the com2000 & if the fault goes away you know the fault is after that point i.e. either the rotary connector or the airbag itself

[captainkephart]

Thanks Wheeler,

Seems I'll have to go through the fault-finding processes (shown clearly in the video below).
And if the clock spring cable is going to snap sometine anyway ... sigh.

Still, it has done 134,000 miles, so not bad!
Cheers, Captain K