Sorry to hear that you're still having issues with your air bag light. I'm pretty sure I'm running 2 ohm 1/2 watt resistors in mine without any issues... and from my research anything from 2.0 - 2.2 ohms should work to defeat the air bag light.


When did this issue start? Curious if it started with the cold weather... Because I guess it could be theoretically possible that the entire circuit might have slightly less resistance when its colder. Since the entire wire harness has some resistance associated with it and this resistance will actually increase as the circuit heats up, so if the circuit/wiring is actually colder than before it may have slightly less resistance associated with it. So maybe the slightly higher, 2.2 ohm, resistors might help. Just throwing out some thoughts. LOL


These resistors shouldn't be polarized so it shouldn't matter how you install them. All they do is add a certain amount of resistance (i.e. 2.2 ohm) to the end of the circuit so the car thinks the air bag is still there.

 

I think it may have been a combination of having a 2 ohm resistor instead of 2.2 ohm and the fact that I did not disconnect the battery when swapping seats. The battery part does seem strange though because I did not disconnect the battery the 1st time and the original resistor worked fine. The airbag light has stayed off since Saturday with the new 2.2 ohm resistor and disconnecting the battery so fingers crossed it stays that way and we are all set.

I did have one relatively large issue. I remembered you mentioned plugging in a white box with 2 plugs and two nuts holding it in place on the factory seat to retain memory and mirrors. Apparently the one pictured below is not the right one even though it plugs in perfectly. It caused my car to not start, but turn on all the electronics (even headlights that were shut off) and the fan and it would not go out of "ON" mode without unplugging the battery. I unplugged the box and the car went into a sort of fail safe mode where it would finally try to start, but only for a second before shutting down. I had to have it towed into my shop and a bunch of codes erased before it would start. Very odd.


This is the wiring harness I thought you were talking about on the top left of the bottom of the driver's seat if it is sitting on its back.




DO NOT plug this directly into the wires under the driver's seat

 

Oh wow. That really sucks.


Yes, as it sounds like you already figured out, in order to keep the menory control box you need to either pull your original driver's seat wiring harness out or purchase a new wiring harness. I just purchased a complete drivers seat wiring harness off ebay and used that (I thought I posted the part number on here somewhere). It's a bit bulky and I eventually plan to cut it down and splice it to get rid of all the excess wiring, but I just have it all wrapped up under the seat for now.

 

I also don't see the resistor for the air bag circuit in your pictures. It should be attached to the yellow connector in your pictures. Where did you put the resistor if its not on the yellow air bag connector?


Edit: Scratch that, I think I see it. It appears to be wrapped in black heat shrink so its pretty camoufloged sitting on top of your black carpet in that second picture

 

When you say "driver's seat wiring harness" do you mean all of the wiring under the seat?

Yes, it is wrapped in electrical tape so it blends into the carpet pretty well in that pic.

 

Yup, that's the one. Here's a few pics of the complete wiring harness... this is the used one I bought off ebay. I started to cut apart the looming so I could cut and splice the wiring to eliminate all the extra wire, but then I realized how much work it was going to be so I figured it would be a project for another day. LOL. My seat bracket is still at standard height so there's plenty of room under the seat for all the wiring, but you might have enough room with your lowered bracket.

 

Good Lord that is a lot of wiring!! And that works with all of those plugs disconnected? Your wiring harness looks very different than mine.

 

The only connectors that are left unconnected are the ones that go to the power seat motors and seat heaters in the original seat, but the power mirrors and memory functions will still work once you have the OEM module plugged in.

 

So it looks like the biggest plug in the picture below (bottom right) is what you plug into the wires in your floor, but then you still have 6 or 7 plugs that are not plugged into anything? Your wiring harness (bottom left) looks a lot different than mine too.

 

Yeah, the white connector in the bottom right of that picture is the input plug that attached to the chassis harness under your drivers seat. It's possible to get rid of 2/3 of the wiring and eliminate all of the extra connectors but you'd have to cut all of the looming, trace all of the wires and then cut/splice the wires needed to keep the memory functions (including running the mirrors). It will be a long job that I indent to tackle some day, but just don't have the free time right now.


The control box in the picture did not come out of my car. Mine's more rectangular and looks just like yours. The box in the picture came with the wiring harness and according to the ebay seller it is out of a G37 Coupe. The wiring harness is the same part number as the one in my original seat so that's all I really cared about.

 

Well that explains why your wiring harness looks different than mine.

However, it is weird that when I plugged from the floor plug directly into the wiring harness it screwed everything up. The only thing I can think of is that there must be something in the bottom half of the wiring harness that was getting skipped when I plugged directly into the wiring harness.

I think I could cut that wiring harness out without too much difficulty, but I won't try plugging in until I am at work again to avoid needing to be towed in another time.

 

Just don't plug your chassis harness directly into your seat control module. The pin numbers for the +12V and main power lines aren't the same on each so you could risk damage to your seat control module or possibly even the car if you try bypassing the seat wiring harness.

 

Maybe that's what happened to me. Strange that it plugs in directly just fine. It seems they would not make those two plugs identically if they basically shut your car down- especially since every other plug under the seat is very unique.

Have you ever driven your car with just the resistor hooked up or have you always had the wiring harness plugged in? I thought I was all good with the new resistor, but Tuesday night my airbag light came on again!?! I was able to reset it when I got home by using the trick to turn the car to the on position and then shut it off as soon as the airbag light went out a few times. However, the light came on again the 1st time I started it up yesterday and then took many attempts to clear it again. I drove it twice yesterday with the light off so hopefully it stays off, but who knows for how long.


Get used to this annoying flashing light if you try to replace your seat

 

So the airbag light stayed off for a week and 3 days and then came back on again tonight. ARGHH!! I was able to reset it again on the second attempt, but is this the new normal? Replace your seat and expect to have to reset your airbag light once a week? This blows!

Has anyone replaced their seat and found a better solution???

 

Well, the airbag light only stayed off until Sunday (so 2 days) and then it came back on again this morning, one day later. This sucks. I hope getting the wiring harness out of the old seat and plugging it in fixes the problem. Otherwise I have no idea how to fix this.