A few days ago I removed my steering wheel air bag and steering wheel so that I could replace a faulty indicator stalk.

 

Initially I disconnected the battery (the night before), and then the following morning I removed the above mentioned items, swapped the stalk over and re-assembled.  During this process I pulled the steering wheel forwards and down (to give me maximum working space).

 

When driving home from work yesterday (I guess about 200 miles since I put the car back together), the airbag warning light came on.  Normally I would expect a whole set of beeps and bings (like it does when you run low on fuel, washer fluid, brake fluid, etc), but nothing.  Stopped for fuel (so turned car off), and hoped it might go away when I re-started the car, but it didn't.

 

I am sure that I made all the connections properly either side of the slip ring thingy....  I have an old version of VAGCOM but I have never scanned the airbag controller, as I did read a warning it could deploy the bags if it went wrong....

 

The other thing I had noticed was even now and then I wondered if I heard like a little "sparky" noise which I have never heard before, so I am wondering if by making moving the steering column the loom has flexed and has shorted out....?

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks :-)

There is no way to even guess at the problem without putting it on VCDS and pulling the fault code off