I've got a Momo one, with the correct boss, but it seems the resistor has either failed, come loose, or whatever as I have the airbag warning on now (checked with VCDS and it reports resistance too high which I'm assuming means that the resistance is infinite and the circuit has been broken). I work in an electronic engineering department so getting hold of another resistor is no problem but I can't work out what kind I need. I had a figure of 3.3 ohms in my head, but after a quick Google it seems that I might be quite a way out and that 2.2 ohms is more like it. Anyone done their own steering wheel mod and fancy sharing what worked for them? Mine came as part of the Momo boss kit (which I didn't fit) so I don't know what's actually in there and I'm not spending £50 on another boss kit just for a resistor!

Also I found mention of wirewound resistors due to the voltage/wattage going through the airbag system, do I need one of these or is a standard 20p one fine?

Ta!

edit - before anyone mentions it, I know I need an airbag for the MOT next year, I have a steering wheel to use for that, but I'm keeping my Momo wheel until then as I like it, and there was such a time when airbags didn't exist and people still survived car crashes then.

Edited 12 October, 201114 yr by gavinchappell

I've got a Momo one, with the correct boss, but it seems the resistor has either failed, come loose, or whatever as I have the airbag warning on now (checked with VCDS and it reports resistance too high which I'm assuming means that the resistance is infinite and the circuit has been broken). I work in an electronic engineering department so getting hold of another resistor is no problem but I can't work out what kind I need. I had a figure of 3.3 ohms in my head, but after a quick Google it seems that I might be quite a way out and that 2.2 ohms is more like it. Anyone done their own steering wheel mod and fancy sharing what worked for them? Mine came as part of the Momo boss kit (which I didn't fit) so I don't know what's actually in there and I'm not spending £50 on another boss kit just for a resistor!

Also I found mention of wirewound resistors due to the voltage/wattage going through the airbag system, do I need one of these or is a standard 20p one fine?

Ta!

edit - before anyone mentions it, I know I need an airbag for the MOT next year, I have a steering wheel to use for that, but I'm keeping my Momo wheel until then as I like it, and there was such a time when airbags didn't exist and people still survived car crashes then.

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Can't help with the technical question but my airbag light has been on for 3 years now and it never bothers me even at night, this was activated when the bucket seat was fitted as my momo steering wheel had a resistor which didn't activate the airbag light.

Anyway what's this about no airbag and MOT next year? Will my modded car fail?

Part of the (so far proposed, but IMO almost definitely final) changes for the 2012 MOT mean that an "obviously missing or defective airbag" is a failure. The light being on doesn't really bother me either tbh, but with a resistor in place the ECU knows the rest of the safety systems work (i.e. passenger airbag, pretensioners, side airbags if present). Whereas if you don't have a resistor and you have your airbag light on, I think this flags a fault and disables the whole thing.

How scary mine has done the exact same today. Just about to try clearing it and see what happens

Well mine showed up as intermittent last night (i.e. logged fault but everything's fine at the time of the scan) so I cleared it and it stayed off while I was tinkering with things like comfort indicators and trying to find the teardrop wiper setting. But then I started it up for work this morning and it came back on, I haven't put VCDS on it again tonight yet. I'm pretty sure it's probably just that the slightly botched taped up "adapter" (for want of a better word) has come unstuck and the resistor is probably slightly loose and the vibration when I started the car unseated it. So I think I'll just take it apart and put a fresh one in from work with a bit of heatshrink around it so it can't come apart so easily. I only need this for my Momo wheel anyway, I got the little 4-wire loom with the replacement steering wheel I bought for next year so I won't ever need to undo the wiring on this unless it fails again.

Ah I see. Mine was exactly the same, just clearing the code again now and see if and when it pops back up. Not impressed tbh, £200 boss & wheel and the resistor breaks and the centre cap for the wheel doesn't stay in very well either.

Bump for the new week. It occurred to me that resistors are colour banded according to their characteristics, so if all else fails by about Wednesday then I'll just have to bring my allen keys to work to get the wheel off and try to get someone to just give me the same resistor that I already have. But I'd rather find out in advance so if anyone knows off the top of their head (or has fitting instructions for an aftermarket wheel, Momo wouldn't send me any) then could they enlighten me?

Ta!