The Mégane II Owners' Club

For a little while I have been getting the dreaded “Check Air bag” light come on; sometimes only for a second or two every couple of weeks, sometimes for 10 -15 seconds several times a day. Even though I was out of my 3 month warrantee with the dealer, he did have it into his mechanic who said that the light wasn’t staying on long enough to register a fault but he had the main connector under the seat apart to give it a clean as he said they can become dislodged if the car has been hovered (which it had) and reset the computer as a matter of good faith (I was there when he did that bit). This was OK for a week or so when it started again.

There’s a garage around the corner from where I work who very kindly connected his diagnostic, FOC, which lo & behold brought up this fault code.


Determined to get to the bottom of the problem now that I had something to go on I decided to get the seat out and give everything a thorough check over. After disconnecting the battery (both terminals) and going off for a cuppa while the air bags discharged, I undid the main air bag connector and seat belt, then removed the seat from the car. On the carpet between seat & center console was a couple of 10p and a couple of 5p coins.

When I tipped the seat over to access the seat position sensor which is on the inside of the seat rail, ctr. console side, I inadvertently knocked the arm that allows the seat to be adjusted and rather than slide freely the rail jammed solid. I gave it another shake and this fell out from inside the rail on the same side as the sensor


You can see the grooves where it had been wedged into the seat rail and the seat had been running over it.

The rail now slid freely up & down. I checked all the connections, tested the circuit between the seat sensor & connector, all fine. Put the seat back in and in the last month no more “check air bag” light.

It might be coincidence that having the seat out and cleaning the main connector (again) cured the fault, but as this had been done before I want to believe that somehow the money that had slipped down the side of the seat and the 10p in particular was the cause of all the problems.

Well worth the hour or two spent getting the seat out, plus 40p better off LOL

Candleman

Great result

hope cleaning the connector has fixed in the long term. The design of seats seems to funnel change into the seat rail and then the design of the rail seems to make sure the change stays in there!!. If the rail had a couple of plastic sliders that may have kept the majority of objects getting in there (or push them out) but I guess its another component cost for the manufacturer which adds costs. My previous cars have been no different in this respect

Had the same disco on my megs cluster recently. The fault appeart to be that position sensor. I wasnt that lucky and now there is a cable tie around it.
The narly thing in this is that the car now thinks that there is a small size driver and wont detonate the bag fully but still thats better then no bag at all.

If some one knows what type of resistor to solder on it please let me know. I still havent found what im looking for (bono ) and that is the whole loom or the sensor.
Couse the sensor is intecrated to the harness it means that wires need to be cutted.