e46 Battery Cable: Airbag Issue

[Jeremy.d]

Hi everyone.
As a few of you know, I recently bought an '01 330i individual (will post pics once car is 100%). I purchased, it with the airbag light on (foolishly) assuming that it was the seat-belt pretensioner and would be small fix. My mechanic has since done the required work on it to bring it up to scratch, but the airbag light is still holding me back.

While there is no sign of accident damage at all, the pyrotechnic on the battery cable (sorry, pic wont upload for some reason) has fired and has thereby caused the control unit to count that "deployment" and shut down.

The plan is to flash the control unit into believing that it is a new unit and resetting it with a new cable. The problem is that BMW is telling that the cable repair kit is no longer available. I don't want to change the whole cable simply because it runs from back to front and would be a lot of work; and i want to do this properly, no cut and join with ordinary cable and stuff. Where can i get the cable? What are my options here? Surely with the amount of e46's still on the road there must be a solution to this?

All assistance and opinions are welcome.

 

[Solo Man]

The cheap way is to fit a 2 ohm resistor across the two thin wires that connects to the battery that fires the pyrotechnic. Cut those wires and fit the resistor. Have done that on two cars to overcome this problem. Reset with diagnostics. OK, must add, on the first car i could not determine if the pyrotechnic has fired, but cut the wires anyway and fitted the resistor across the wires. It worked as i could reset the airbag light.

 

[Jeremy.d]

The cheap way is to fit a 2 ohm resistor across the two thin wires that connects to the battery that fires the pyrotechnic. Cut those wires and fit the resistor. Have done that on two cars to overcome this problem. Reset with diagnostics. OK, must add, on the first car i could not determine if the pyrotechnic has fired, but cut the wires anyway and fitted the resistor across the wires. It worked as i could reset the airbag light.

Thanks. If i do this, and and reset the control unit, will the airbags still function as it should?

 

[Solo Man]

I cannot guarantee that. Did it at my own risk as they were both my cars. Thankfully i never had to test it though.

 

[Jeremy.d]

I cannot guarantee that. Did it at my own risk as they were both my cars. Thankfully i never had to test it though.

Okay. I might do this for the roadworthy, but I'd prefer to still sort it out properly.


Could anyone else chime in on finding a cable?

 

[Jeremy.d]

Bump