44/1994 E38 740i failed WOF: SRS/airbag light not working

[roganjoshd 0]

Hello all,

I bought my 3rd ever BMW earlier this year and if I recall correctly it was April the 1st when I did so and as it turns out I believe I have been played for a fool!

It failed its first WOF I took it in for earlier this month...

I'm looking for someone nearby to Nelson who may be able to help me fix the little issue of the SRS (airbag) light NOT coming on as expected for a self-test at startup, which has been caused by one or more of the following 3 things a previous owner has done:

1. swapped out the instruments cluster, as confirmed by the VIN stored in the IKE not matching the car and the "tamper dot" is also showing next to the odometer

2. replaced the Airbag Control Unit with one from an E34 as confirmed by its BMW part number

3. cut at least 1 wire coming from the Airbag Control Unit, possibly there are more but I'd have to completely remove the centre console to find out

The previous WOF was done in February as part of the car's re-registration as it had been off the road since 2006 (apparently not because it was an insurance write off) and I have spoken to VINZ who did the testing and they claim that the SRS light must of been functioning fine then, however I suspect that it was missed and as a result I have ended up with the problem because the AA were a little bit more thorough when doing the last WOF.

I'm hoping that someone near or in Nelson maybe able to help with the required ADS cables to connect to the car's 20-pin socket, I have the old laptop with a serial port and software to do so and a set of cables from trademe which I think is only any good for OBD cars.

I have been down to the local authorised BMW service centre (Haven Motors) and while they have been very helpful and have also tried unsuccessfully plugging into the car, to get it fixed with new parts there is not economically viable, I'd be better off taking the car to a wrecker in exchange for cash.

Or I could try and build my own like this:

home made ADS interface

Cheers!

josh