Hi All,

Well it's finally happened, our first child has arrived and my sleep deprived face proves it! Of course I realised while picking up mother and child from the hospital that I need to disable the airbags on our motors in order to put the little fella in the front seat (it's a nightmare trying to fit that child seat in the back with the seatbelt only just long enough!). Had a quick scan through the manual and that says ask the dealer, then shows a pic of using a key to disable it in the glovebox.

I have a 03 Octavia Vrs and the mrs has a 53 Fabia 1.9 Tdi. Neither have the switch in the glovebox so I assume it's off to the dealer for us both. Now my question is how do they switch it off? Is it a VAGCOM job? And are they likely to charge for this service and if so how much? As those with children know they don't come cheap and every penny counts at the minute.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Damo

you could do it with vag-com if you knew the login codes. A dealer should be able to do it for an hour or so labour charge.

:eek:

Was hoping it wouldn't cost that much! Still it has to be done. Will phone the dealer in the morning and see how much they want.

Thanks for the reply.

Damo

Bad news on this front! I have spoken to two dealers this morning. One said that they don't/it can't be done and there is loads of paperwork etc would have to be done, like informing DVLA! The second dealer said it could be done but was a long, expensive complex job which requires a wiring loom being added.

Has anyone here had this done? If so how much did it cost? I can't believe that a family car just four years old doesn't have the ability to have a child seat in the front. Maybe it was on the options list?

Cheers,

Damo

TBH i wouldn't want a baby in the front at all, is the child seat fitted correctly in the rear? (easy to fit them wrong) what about an ISOFIX seat? Do your car's have the ISOFIX system?

The front airbag deactivation is a factory fit option.

Bad news on this front! I have spoken to two dealers this morning. One said that they don't/it can't be done and there is loads of paperwork etc would have to be done, like informing DVLA! The second dealer said it could be done but was a long, expensive complex job which requires a wiring loom being added.

Has anyone here had this done? If so how much did it cost? I can't believe that a family car just four years old doesn't have the ability to have a child seat in the front. Maybe it was on the options list?

Cheers,

Damo

I think you have been mis advised Damo.

The document they should be reffering to starts with -

Front passenger airbag:

Can be deactivated if the customer would like to use

a rear facing child seat on the front passenger seat. Please bear in mind that

Škoda Auto recommends, that children under 12 years should always be carried

on the rear seat as detailed in the owners handbook. Please proceed strictly

according to the Workshop Manual!

There was an option to have a switch, which I know on the Fabia was £65.

Short of taking the entire unit out, I'm not sure I'd be confident that the airbag wasn't still connected. I have the switch in mine as a factory-fit option, so at least I get visible confirmation when it's off. My wife's doesn't as it was second-hand, although I reckon that our little 'un (when it arrives) will be riding in the back all the time; not so much because of the advice in the manual, but because that's where the ISOFIX mounts are...

The proper way to do it is to 'code it out' using VAS/VAG-COM.

Thanks for all of the replies. Looks like it's not really an option. I just assumed that it would be easier if you were taking the baby out on your own to have him in the front. But it looks like the back seat it is. Thanks again, Damien

Not sure if it's too late but I had this done on my Octy Vrs 51 plate when my daughter was born.

The dealers are talking rubbish if they say it can't be done or need the wiring loom altered.

It was £50 to have it de-activated and I had to sign a disclaimer and tell my insurance company.

They just linked it up to the computer and changed the settings, I'm sure it was a little more complicated but that was what my Skoda dealer said to explain what they did. They also put a daft sticker on the dash saying that it had been switched off.

HTH.

That's corect.

That sounds more like what I was thinking of. Assumed it would be something along those lines. I will make further enquiries with the dealer. However having resigned myself to the fact that the baby would be in the back seats, it didn't seem so bad after all.

Thanks again for all the input ppl.

Damo

Having them in the back is fine if there are 2 people in the front as the passenger can turn around to attend to the baby.

If you are on you're own then them being in the front is less distracting. The rearward facing car seat also fits better in the front seat.

I had to do it this way as I had a dog in the car at weekends anyway and having a dog and baby in the back wasn't an option.

My dealer didn't charge me for activating the airbag once my daughter was in the next stage of seat.