air bag light on and off on Renault Clio

esentziak

Hi, I have a 1996 Renault clio on which my daughter is going to take her driving test next Wednesay.

In the last couple of days, air bag light has started to come on and off.

I have asked a garage to remove the fuse to get over the problem temporarily, as I am worried in case she is failed even before starting driving - they said it was illegal and cannot do before .... nest Wednesday.

(Notes which came with driving test info. states that the test cannot be taken in a car which has warning light/signs appearing on the dashboard).

Anybody know what to do? is there a fuse or a bubl I can remove (I know nothing about cars - typical woman driver, don't really want to know what's under the bonnet).

thanks in advance for any advice

Esentziak

the evil belly

u could ask someone else to remove the fuse for you. friend of mine drives a clio and has had several problems with warning lights. the cars new and it turns out some of the connections were not joined correctly. garage had to keep the car for a day or so and re-solder(or whatever they do) some of em

ando

yeah I drive a renault kangoo in work, the air bag was constanly coming on. Once I got it serviced and they fixed the problem but the light came back on within weeks. I got the van serviced again 3 weeks ago, the light has not come on since. It seems to be a regular thing with renaults

youdecide

I have a citroen and the same thing happens to me, the best thing to do is bring the car to a Renault garage

Victor

What happens if the airbag accidently triggers while you are driving because of this fault? You might be relatively safe but you won't be able to see where you are going (even when the bag deflates the car willl still be full if the gunpowder smoke).

Get it sorted ASAP.

esentziak

Thanks for replies, but my local Renault garage wants euro 200.00 to fix this if it is an on-board computer fault and euro 700.00 if it's the airbag!

I just don't have the money at the moment.

There is no indication in the handbook as to which fuse it is, if indeed, there is a fuse connected with this light. I presume there has to be?

It would not be so much of a problem if my daughter was not due to take her test next Wednesday. Trying to get her used to another car at this stage does not seem like a good idea.

She really needs a full driving licence.

Any other ideas? thanks again

Esentziak

Borzoi

It seems you're not alone with airbag related problems on Clios, see here

Not being hugely technical on cars, I'd suggest you get a Haynes manual for the car - either from the library or a motor shop, as they have fuller wiring diagrams, and might help.

Otherwise talk to your local mechanic - as opposed to the Renault main dealer, who might be prepared to sort you out.

ToxicPaddy

I had a similar problem with the airbag in my car, except it was a
seat belt pretensioner in the seat belt clip..

It only coast about €40 to fix by a local garage but the ford dealership were charging me €400 to do the same job.

I wouldnt tamper with the fuses on an airbag as the someone
here already said, if it goes off accidentally, it could cause
you to lose control of the car and crash if driving it at the time,
or it will cost you a small fortune to get a new steering wheel
with the airbag inside, reset the sensors and get it installed
by a renault dealer..

Tox

The_Bullman

I sat my test in a my instructor's clio. This car had a dodgy handbrake warning light which the tester immediatly asked me about. I think that I just shrugged and told him that it's been like that for as long as I've been driving the car. We did the test, I passed, simple.

esentziak

I think I will forget about it for the time being.

The Renault manual states that "if the warning light does not illuminate when the ignition is switched on, or if it flashes, there is a fault in the system".

Well, it does illuminate, it does not flash, it just does not always switch off (sometimes, it does!)

So according to the Renault manual, it's not really a fault and I will just tell my daughter to quote the manual to the driving test person if he queries it.

I think that charging 200 euro to reset the computer system is absolutely outrageous.

Thanks again to everybody for their replies.

Esentziak

SheroN

All the equipment to do these things costs big money, not to mention the training that is needed to train mechanics in their use.

Victor

Originally posted by esentziak
I think that charging 200 euro to reset the computer system is absolutely outrageous.

Eh, if I sell cars with known faults, aren't I responsible for fixing said faults?

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by SheroN
All the equipment to do these things costs big money, not to mention the training that is needed to train mechanics in their use.

Not really..

a local mechanic back home was in the UK and got the official
diagnostics software for BMWs and Merc's that allows him
to plug a laptop into the engine management system and see
what faults are occurring.

He bought it for Stg£240.. the most expensive part apart from the
laptop was the actual lead to run from the laptop which was
another Stg£100.

So thats not a lot of money, you'd make that back on 2 car
services

Tox

SheroN

The way it works is, you buy your fault code reader, then for every different make ofcar you have to buy the corresponding pod for the code reader. It ends up costing a fortune, as new pods are needed the whole time, and the pods don't come cheap(esp BMW and merc ones etc).

an_taoiseach

I'm just a newbie trawling thought the past posties

Of course cars are not all the same..............

But a lot of the technology in them is sourced from the same suppliers

So this may or may not be useful :

I have a (1994) Vauxhall ( AKA Opel in The Free State )

About two years ago I had an issue with the airbag light flashing on and off

This was due to the alternator subsystem starting to fail and producing excessive voltage.

Replacing the alternator fixed the problem and there have been no further issues related to the airbag light since.

Get someone with a voltmeter to measure the voltage given out by the alternator at different revs from idle up to say 5000

In my case I was able to do this from connections at the back of the cigarette igniter and could see 16V ( way to much given that the thing is a 12V system ) at 2000 revs

Have to go now

( Late for an FnF do followed by chicken in a basket )

T

esentziak

thanks to everybody; the problem has now gone, all on its own, no idea why. Warning light behaving as it is supposed to.

It did not show up on driving test day, but my daughter failed anyway (first time - are the rumours that a lot of people are automatically failed on their first attempt, true???)

Esentziak

Victor

Originally posted by esentziak
first time - are the rumours that a lot of people are automatically failed on their first attempt, true???

No, it's largely because people can't drive in this country - imagine if they passed more people everyone wouldn't be giving them stick, so no I don't think your suggestion is a runner.

Remember humans are intelligent, people are stupid.