K12 cleaning airbag connectors

[Awespex]

Hi there

I got a lovely new K12 03 a couple of weeks ago but the airbag light is being a PITA.

It first started flashing a couple of days after I got the car. I went through the 'on/off/wait x 5' process and it worked, but only for a couple of drives. Now, sometimes that fix works, and sometimes it doesn't.

Jiggling the connectors under driver and passenger seat seems to get it to behave for a bit. I would like to give the connectors a clean before I resort to taking it to the garage but not sure what I'm doing! Can anyone give me a clue before I start prising apart bits I shouldn't?

Ta Muchly!

 

[MattInARedMicra]

The connectors under the seats are weight sensors that detect if someone is sitting in the passenger seat so the car knows whether or not to deploy the passenger airbags in the event of a crash.

There shouldn't be any issue unplugging them while the car is off, other than them being difficult to get to. You may want to disconnect the battery, I'm not sure if there is any power going to them while the car switched off but there could be (to deploy the airbags if someone hits you while parked)

this is how it looks. The large part is inside the seat cushions, there is some circuitry, those 3 wires go to a connector, the connector looks like this:

There will be a bit you press in to remove it, plastic shielding around it and metal contacts inside. Blow some compressed air in there into each half, you can use a small wire brush to clean the metal contacts or use sandpaper wrapped around a pencil or some other thin object - take care not to bend the contacts. This is if the problem is with the connector, it may be that the wires (in the first image) going into the connector have come loose or the solder has broken creating a loose connection.

There is diagnostics you can do on some cars to diagnose if the problem is the weight sensor.



This video shows the process, they sell bluetooth adapters and an app on your phone that allows you to use your phone to read whether something is working or not in real time