forddieseldoctor Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 A guy I know called me up and asked me to look at the airbag light on his 13 Focus with a salvage title that he had just bought. Said he had it at another dealer and they quoted him $4,000 to attempt to fix it. There was no guarantee that it would fix it. He said that he couldn't get them to give him the codes either. I took a look at it and I had a code for passenger side curtain bag high resistance in the rcm. But I also noticed that in the instrument cluster I had a B1A14:13 RCM warning lamp circuit open and a U0073:88 Control Module Communication Bus "A" Off: Bus Off. Didn't think too much of those codes. Guy dropped it off so that I could see why the one curtain bag had high resistance. I hopped in it and noticed that the warning lamp in the dash wasn't illuminated all the time, but that the message center simply said airbag system fault. Checked to make sure the air bag light proved out. Pulled the corner of the headliner down to find the connector and found that the whole freaking air bag was missing. Guy decides that he doesn't wanna deal with the guy he bought it from and decides he's gonna get a used bag and have me install it. Got the bag from him tonight and pulled the headliner down, discovered that I don't have enough of the fasteners to properly secure the bag. Put it in place with the few bolts I had (I gotta try to find some before I can put the headliner back up), plugged it in and turned the key on. Got the same message as before. Throw my scanner on it and found the code in the rcm is gone and I have no other codes in there. But I have the 2 codes in the instrument cluster yet. I'm not using the IDS as I don't have my own VCM. I am using AE instead. And the other thing I found as odd is that whenever I select the instrument cluster for the base module the instrument cluster crashes and goes dark. The "B" code says to replace the cluster. I can't find any diagnostics for the "U" code I have. I did check my resistances for the network at the data link for all 3 of the networks. I got between 61 and 65 ohms on all 3. I don't have the option to run a network test, but as far as I can tell all of the equipped modules are responding to the scanner. Anyone got any ideas on what this hack monkey could have done to make the airbag light not light when there is an obvious fault present, but yet it will still prove out when the key is turned on? I don't have any other codes in any of the other modules. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 Retry with IDS for codes, seat cushion zeroing, etc. My offshore cheapie interface for my laptop does fucky things to the CAN when I plug it in, different on every vehicle Your mileage may vary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forddieseldoctor Posted October 16, 2014 Author Share Posted October 16, 2014 Replaced cluster and programmed new cluster through shop with IDS. Everything was normal as soon as I plugged in the new cluster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbriggs Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 I wonder if they tried to take it apart and disable the airbag light, or maybe tried electronically to disable the airbag light and fried the cluster? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forddieseldoctor Posted November 7, 2014 Author Share Posted November 7, 2014 I fon't know. I did open up the back of the cluster and didn't see anything abnormal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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