Fiat ducato air bag warning light is on…..AGAIN. (1 Viewer)

[Camper634]

For the 3rd time in less than 12 months the air bag warning light is back on the dash.The last time was 6 weeks ago when it cost me £88 with crashdata to have the module reprogrammed.I did ask the question then why has it gone again.One of the replies it could be high voltage when starting the engine.So every time since the last replacement i have turned the ignition to on and waited until the various lights went off before cranking the engine.This morning i only tuned the ignition on to check mu LPG levels and almost immediately the air bag light came on.
I am at a loss what to do next.I cant keep paying £88 God knows how many times.Has anyone please got/had this problem and found out a reliable fix?Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[The Artilleryman]

Apologies if it's been said before.
Crashdata only reload the built in software - therefore technically not a repair - a repair would be to rectify whatever is causing the original problem, which causes the warning light to illuminate.

 

[Diabalo]

Apologies if it's been said before.
Crashdata only reload the built in software - therefore technically not a repair - a repair would be to rectify whatever is causing the original problem, which causes the warning light to illuminate.

The problem is that nobody seem s to know what is causing it in the first place. We have had reports of high voltage and low voltage with vehicle batteries that have been fully charged. As Toyah said "It's a mystery"

 

[Polar bear]

I had the airbag problems and read all the threads and decided to have it replaced with a new unit which has a different part number to the original it’s guaranteed for a year so here’s hoping no future problems

 

[Stealaway]

Its seems Ford are recalling 3 million cars because of faulty air bags.
How long will it be until Fiat recall their Ducato vans? ---

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[MichaelT]

Its seems Ford are recalling 3 million cars because of faulty air bags.
How long will it be until Fiat recall their Ducato vans? ---

Vans seem immune to the issue its mostly in motorhomes.

 

[MichaelT]

I had the airbag problems and read all the threads and decided to have it replaced with a new unit which has a different part number to the original it’s guaranteed for a year so here’s hoping no future problems

2 years with mine.

 

[chaser]

Vans seem immune to the issue its mostly in motorhomes.

Swivel seats?

 

[BouncyBoatFolk]

Time spent being unused?

 

[TheBig1]

They live much longer than a courier or builders vans, which do 250-500 Thousand miles in 2 or 3 years

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Camper634]

Time spent being unused?

Not with me.I use it all year round.Never had a problem until it was out of warranty.Now if i get 6 months out of it i am relieved.Fiat taking us for mugs and we letting them(Including me)

 

[MichaelT]

Swivel seats?

Maybe but my thoughts are more to do with conversions and charging the engine battery via solar/battery masters etc. That's the only real difference?

 

[Conal]

Mine blew when I used a booster on the vehicle battery to start the motorhome when in storage. I now avoid this by swapping batteries every few weeks.

 

[B Free]

For the 3rd time in less than 12 months the air bag warning light is back on the dash.The last time was 6 weeks ago when it cost me £88 with crashdata to have the module reprogrammed.I did ask the question then why has it gone again.One of the replies it could be high voltage when starting the engine.So every time since the last replacement i have turned the ignition to on and waited until the various lights went off before cranking the engine.This morning i only tuned the ignition on to check mu LPG levels and almost immediately the air bag light came on.
I am at a loss what to do next.I cant keep paying £88 God knows how many times.Has anyone please got/had this problem and found out a reliable fix?Any help greatly appreciated.

Can we not just buy the "Flash" machine that Crashdata uses and then never have to worry about this issue raising it's head every month? Does anyone know where to look for the hardware and software? Crashdata bought it from someone. I would assume we could too.

 

[TheBig1]

There is a lot of info online. Identify the EEPROM chip and it is a simple case of a programmer and a clip on the end of a piece of wire that straddles the chip. You take an image of a known working unit and simply overwrite that onto the locked chip

The bigger issue is what caused the corruption of the memory in the first place. A couple I have seen show signs of corrosion and the boards inside looking unhealthy. Nothing usually that can't be fixed, although some are beyond it. Fixing needs electronics skills to fix dry solder joints on discreet components. You need a small heatgun and temperature controlled solder station, plus a big magnifier to check the tracks etc

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[TheBig1]

It really shocks me the electrical parts that just get binned and replaced in the UK. Go somewhere like Romania, Morocco or all manner of other countries and they fix those parts all the time. The way that people just assume an ecu gets repaired by the likes of crashdata is shocking too. All they do is a visual inspection and overwrite any that are not corroded. The rest get binned as uneconomical to repair. An hour or two with somebody with the skills would be much cheaper

 

[Jasz]

A for D. Salmon at Weeley. They didn't question that it needed changing and charged £343 for a new one. There is also a decent cafe and caravan accessory shop close by.
Thanks again for the reccomendations.

 

[Larby]

A little story of an airbag ECU. It failed, I noticed it was newer than the vehicle, I contacted original and previous owner who told me it was a replacement as the original failed on him. I sent it to Crash Data, installed and took it for MOT, it passed, it failed soon after. Contacted Crash Data, I was told it worked after they had sorted it, not their fault if whatever causes it to fail again. (grudgingly a fair point?)
I sent to Crashdata, now it gets interesting, I was told it had become unstable and I should buy a new one. I declined their suggestion, plugged it in and it worked and passed MOT soon after.
I disconnected the unit when MH put in storage. I would drive some miles when taking from storage even though MH fired up OK, then stop and connect unit. It lasted through the summer. Put in storage and disconnected unit.
Today, start up, drive towards MOT centre, stop short, connect unit and no air bag light.
So what causes failure? Low voltage on cranking even though starts OK? Surge from alternator due to low voltage?
BUT, I never cranked engine last year until ALL dash lights out, even when I stalled it, key off, key on, wait and start.
What am I doing right?
I am now the proud owner of another "Pass" MOT. That's 2 in a row on that supposedly unstable unit

 

[Camper634]

I tried a similar routine with my FOURTH Air bag control unit.Thought I was onto something when it was still going strong after 6 weeks.However,after only turning the ignition key and NOT cranking the engine,I heard the dreaded single bleep and the b***ard had gone again.I have now fitted a new starter battery although I am sure that the original one was OK.I am looking to get the ECU repaired but not by crashdata. Anyone who could suggest a different company would be really appreciated.

 

[clanjones]

Well another month passes, and it is MOT and service time and the airbag ECU is still behaving itself. Motorhome passed MOT no bother, apart from one misaligned head lamp. The issues withe the ECU beggars belief at how random the failures and fixes appear to be. I do still wonder when I next go to the van whether the lovely little red airbag ecu light will go out though!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[buzz1]

it

 

[Bernie n Anna]

I tried a similar routine with my FOURTH Air bag control unit.Thought I was onto something when it was still going strong after 6 weeks.However,after only turning the ignition key and NOT cranking the engine,I heard the dreaded single bleep and the b***ard had gone again.I have now fitted a new starter battery although I am sure that the original one was OK.I am looking to get the ECU repaired but not by crashdata. Anyone who could suggest a different company would be really appreciated.

Try northern auto tec, they were honest enough to tell me mine was kaputt, no charge and advised me where to go for a new one.

 

[Camper634]

Try northern auto tec, they were honest enough to tell me mine was kaputt, no charge and advised me where to go for a new one.

That is where mine is as we speak. Got to be better than crash data surely? I will let you know

 

[clanjones]

Yep, I sent mine to northern Autotech and so far so good.

 

[Camper634]

Received ECU back from Autotech today.Charged me £95 including postage.Report enclosed with it said it had lost comms and had corrosion?When it packed in it was because of low battery volts.Colour me sceptical.Anyway after refitting the air bag light had gone off but the odometer was flashing.A note stapled to the report said if this happened it would need proxy alignment.None of the previous repairs needed this so i was a little miffed.However an hour later I took it out and the odometer had stopped flashing and all appears ok Not exactly filled with confidence but with the MOT due in 2 weeks hopefully it will last until then.In fact I wont use it until I take it for the MOT.I will now lay down in a dark room until my head clears

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Ditcha]

Received ECU back from Autotech today.Charged me £95 including postage.Report enclosed with it said it had lost comms and had corrosion?When it packed in it was because of low battery volts.Colour me sceptical.Anyway after refitting the air bag light had gone off but the odometer was flashing.A note stapled to the report said if this happened it would need proxy alignment.None of the previous repairs needed this so i was a little miffed.However an hour later I took it out and the odometer had stopped flashing and all appears ok Not exactly filled with confidence but with the MOT due in 2 weeks hopefully it will last until then.In fact I wont use it until I take it for the MOT.I will now lay down in a dark room until my head clears

Take it for mot early like tomorrow just incase

 

[Benjymoto]

Hi all, So having just reset this issue again on my 2016 Fiat Ducato I thought I'd share how I did it.

Big disclaimer do this entirely at your own risk, your mileage may vary etc. I fumbled my way through this, piecing bits together from various forums, my background is making games and building/racing cars as a hobby, I'm certainly not a professional.

I just hate to see fellow motor home owners having to fork out £90 for every MOT for something that quite frankly Fiat should sort properly and TRW most definitely don't deserve the money for people buying new ecu's every few years.

Keep in mind this seems to only temporarily sort it for me but that seems to be the case for the professional send it away "fix" as well, going by this thread atleast.
So if your feeling brave you can give it a go yourself.

I used carprog 10.93, think you can get it off ebay but I expect Ali Express is cheaper, this is just to download the contents of the eeprom, so in theory you could probably use an arduino with a bit of research, I just haven't had time to experiment with that.
I recommend purchasing some "SMD Grippers & Test Clips" basically very small little grippers that can attach to the legs of the EEPROM and save you from having to desolder it.

You'll want to locate the EEPROM on the board
and then connect up the "A4 EEprom Adaptor" as shown on the diagram 95xxx, notice that 2 pins are not needed, this extra space makes using the test clips a lot easier and allows you to avoid desoldering the EEPROM
Use a multimeter to check your not shorting any pins to each other and to make sure that you are connecting the correct pins on the EEPROM to the carprog a4 adaptor(dont trust the colours in the images, always check and double check the actual pins)

Boot up carprog 10.93, go to eeprom, select 95640, I used 3.3v and read/verify
Download the EEPROM contents and verify it, save the dump to somewhere handy
Load up a hex editor, I used HXD and look for location CE0, this is where I believe the errors are stored.
Clear this entire section with FF's followed by 00 as shown in my image HXD_Clear_error

Now flash the EEPROM with your newly edited file and verify it.

Hook it back up to the van and fingers crossed your airbag light is out.

Best of luck and I hope this helps.

Ben

 

[Phill D]

Hi and welcome

Thank you for the information.

Can I ask Is a proxy alignment needed at any stage

 

[Benjymoto]

Hi and welcome

Thank you for the information.

Can I ask Is a proxy alignment needed at any stage

I haven’t needed to do a proci alignment but I did disconnect the battery remove the ecu, modify the eeprom memory and put it straight back in. I can’t vouch for what would happen if you removed the ecu and used the van for a while and then tried to do this. I did notice that there is some data near the start of the eeprom memory that had changed since last time I did this, so conceivably that is related to some sort of alignment and gets updated every so often and could in theory get out of sync.
I don’t have any documentation from the manufacturer or a dump of what the airbag ecu rom is actually doing so a lot of this is unfortunately guess work.

 

[Benjymoto]

I haven’t needed to do a proci alignment but I did disconnect the battery remove the ecu, modify the eeprom memory and put it straight back in. I can’t vouch for what would happen if you removed the ecu and used the van for a while and then tried to do this. I did notice that there is some data near the start of the eeprom memory that had changed since last time I did this, so conceivably that is related to some sort of alignment and gets updated every so often and could in theory get out of sync.
I don’t have any documentation from the manufacturer or a dump of what the airbag ecu rom is actually doing so a lot of this is unfortunately guess work.

You could in theory use a virginalised ecu dump, those would need a Proxi alignment I expect but i’ve not tried any of those yet. Mainly because it didn’t seem necessary and it seemed more risky using a random dump off the internet instead of modifying what I already have. I guess if your eeprom was corrupted that would be the way you’d need to go.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Benjymoto]

Btw this was for ecu 01388160080 other ecu’s may have the errors stored somewhere else in memory so please be careful. Apologies for the spam to the thread I couldn’t find an edit button for my original post.

Ben