Okay, a few days ago the warning light came on so now i've had to book it into the garage next week :(

So what sort of cost am i looking at to get this fixed, i mean could it be a serious fault or just a loose wire?

Cheers

GFS

I once had the airbag light come on in my last Felicia. Turned out not to be a fault with the airbag at all. The car was producing a slightly higher electrical voltage than it was meant to, causing the problem. Trouble was this as I found out a week or so later had also fried the battery.

is your car still in warranty ? i would have thought it wpuld have been covered by warranty.

Other owners have had this problem and I can't recall anyone having to pay serious money to get it fixed, so don't worry.

I too have had William's problem with batteries frying. I once owned a VW411 which had a faulty voltage regulator. My local VW garage in Malta replaced the battery 3 times before investigating and locating the fault. (The battery was situated under the rear seat and gave off pungent acid fumes when the voltage reached something like 14.6V.)

is your car still in warranty ? i would have thought it wpuld have been covered by warranty.

No its a 2000 model.

Hope it would cost too much, cheers for the input guys

Answer 1, the problem William and Denis had on thier Felicia's is quite common, eventually it fries the engine ECU if left long enough.

Answer 2, I would think the problem on the Fabia could well be the airbag contact ring, seems to be the favorite on the Fabia, but without checking the fault codes its anyones guess.

Update:

Took it to the garage today and they said that the intial fault of low resistance in the bag couldn't be found so the reset the fault and they only charged me 32 quid for half an hours work on the diagnostic machine

So i'm pretty chuffed about that

Update 2:

Sorry to drag this one up again. the lights come back on again so it looks like a replacement is on the cards :(

Anyone else had their airbag replaced so i can get a ball park figure in my head if the garage try and rip me off

GFS

I'd very much doubt its the actual airbag itself, more than likely the contact ring behind the steering wheel.

It does bring up the same fault btw.

Cheers for that Ross, all the garage said last time was that if the light came on that they would have to replace the whole thing, i guess they put it in laymans terms for me

oh OT: my doors are wired up now well the drivers side are

Personally i'd double check mate, have seen quite a few people change the airbag itself and it doesnt cure it.

It might be the airbag but its more common for the contact ring to give a resistance fault as its allways moving.

okay, thanks for that. So when i go in there do i just say " i heard it might be a problem with the contact ring" i don't want to sound like a numpty but at the same time don't want to tell them how to do their job

Anyone else had their airbag replaced so i can get a ball park figure in my head if the garage try and rip me off

The airbag for a standard Fabia steering wheel is

The airbag for a standard Fabia steering wheel is

Where as a contact ring is around

Where as a contact ring is around

Well I think in the six years or so ive been doing VAG cars ive changed two airbags, and one of them i must admit was a miss-diagnosis hence my knowing about the contact ring showing the same fault.

However I have changed probably around 80 -100 contact rings.

Okay cheers for that Ross, i'll have a word with them about it on monday.

I may well be wrong and I dont want to tell a dealer how to do thier job.

Problem is there is a test box for checking airbags, it goes on in place of the airbag but copies the resistance of the airbag itself. So if the fault goes away its the bag, if its still there then its the contact ring or wiring or possibly the ECU. But the first time I saw that test box was on my last Skoda course, dealers never have it as its not on the manditiory tool order for a dealer so it costs extra, and to be honest most dont even know it exists.