Air Bag Warning Light

[bigpeps52]

I have a 1999 carerra 911 cab2 and the airbag warning light came on today and remains on. Is this going to be a pain in my butt or is this an easy fix.. Do i have to go back the dealer to fix this? Car has 32,500 miles on it.

[Dharn55]

Often this is caused by a faulty seat belt buckle. Once you find the cause you need the Porsche tool (PST2 or newer version) or a Durametric tool (OBD reader) to clear the fault code and turn the light off.

[bigpeps52]

I have a 1999 carerra 911 cab2 and the airbag warning light came on today and remains on. Is this going to be a pain in my butt or is this an easy fix.. Do i have to go back the dealer to fix this? Car has 32,500 miles on it.

Thanks I will check it out, it did come on when a passenger was in the car

[jdearth]

I have the same year, make and model. This is very common for our year. Usually this is a faulty seat buckle issue, but it's harder to solve than one would like. The first fix is to update the seat buckle from the offending side (driver or passenger). But the underlying issue has something to do with the wiring, of course, and Porsche has created a "kit" that is supposed to be a permanent fix. I've had both buckles replaced and the "kit", but my light still comes back on from time to time. I may resort to taking it to a dealer next time--instead of my independent Porsche specialist mechanic. Good luck and keep us posted.

[1schoir]

I have the same year, make and model. This is very common for our year. Usually this is a faulty seat buckle issue, but it's harder to solve than one would like. The first fix is to update the seat buckle from the offending side (driver or passenger). But the underlying issue has something to do with the wiring, of course, and Porsche has created a "kit" that is supposed to be a permanent fix. I've had both buckles replaced and the "kit", but my light still comes back on from time to time. I may resort to taking it to a dealer next time--instead of my independent Porsche specialist mechanic. Good luck and keep us posted.

If you are reasonably handy and can solder, you can implement this fix yourself in a few hours.

There is a TSB that describes the procedure, step-by-step, although the language is archaic and obtuse.

First, pull the codes to verify that it is indeed pointing to the seat belt buckle/ground wiring problem. IIRC, those codes are in the 4X range (i.e., 42, 45, etc.).

Regards, Maurice.

[mdgcentral99]

Yes, it is a pain in the butt. I have same make and model, except C4. Light has come on 5 times. One replaced buckle, second buckle, wiring kit, "grounding", and a free warranty "rewiring" by my dealer fixed it for about a year. He did that because I have spent almost $800 on this little "project". Popped up again last month, signalling one of the buckes is bad again. Don't know how that happened. Passenger seat not used that much.

Expect it will happen again. Probably a month out of warranty.

Obviously, a silly design, no fix, and a headache. Keep us updated.

Mark

[bigpeps52]

I have the same year, make and model. This is very common for our year. Usually this is a faulty seat buckle issue, but it's harder to solve than one would like. The first fix is to update the seat buckle from the offending side (driver or passenger). But the underlying issue has something to do with the wiring, of course, and Porsche has created a "kit" that is supposed to be a permanent fix. I've had both buckles replaced and the "kit", but my light still comes back on from time to time. I may resort to taking it to a dealer next time--instead of my independent Porsche specialist mechanic. Good luck and keep us posted.

Thanks it is the passenger buckle. I will fix it eventually. My porsche guy has buckles for me. Thanks for the help. In the meantime I put piece of round velcro over the light to block it. It was driving me crazy until i the have time to repair.

[P2C4]

For the last 4 years I've had a 1999 C4 as my daily driver. Here's a link to a less than 90 second fix for the problem. Well, the first time you do it, it will probably take you 2 or 3 minutes for the first seat, and half a minute for the other seat. This fix is far less hassle than either a DYI seat belt replacement, or driving some where to have someone replce the belts for you.

In four years, I've had to spray the seat belt female contacts and under seat connections I think 3 times. It always cures the problem immediately.