Where is the Airbag spring unit located?

Trying to debug a fault light on a 97 jetta III- I believe the control module is in the center console, but no reference can I find to the spring unit. Bently won't talk about this stuff at all.

any help?

Do you mean the spiral spring? The spiral spring is located in the steering wheel. to access it you need to remove the airbag and steering wheel. Sometimes you can get codes in the airbag control unit for spiral spring resistance to low/high if your battery has low voltage and its cold out,.

found it shortly after I posted.


Do these things normally fail? I'm trying to clear an airbag light on the dash, and am trying to eliminate possibilities.

Bought the car at auction, had a dead battery. How sensitive are the controllers if you hook up a fresh battery without turning the key on?

VW airbag systems are anal about low battery voltages... The spiral springs in passats always go bad because vw didnt use the correct amount of wires in the harness. Jettas and golfs normally dont go bad. Usually a new battery will help. But the codes need to be erased from the airbag control module my a vw dealer or a shop that has access to airbag faults. If it was at an auction theres a good chance the car was in an auction if the airbag light is on.

Aha- anal , much like BMW motorcycle ABS faults due to low batt voltage.

So, I ned a dealer, eh? wonderfaul.


Tha car had a flat dead battery when I took it, but it jumped and chardeged with no troubles. Looks like a fresh battery from the date codes, so I will try to clear it somehow and see what happens.

I do have another airbag control module from a 98 that wasn't crashed. Would it help to throw that in, or is the fault stored in the ECU?

The faults are stored in the airbag control module. You can swap it if the vehicle is the same (swap from 2.0 auto wolfsberg to 2.0 auto wolfsberg). I dont know if the control modules are the same for autos/manuals or 2.0 and vr6 engines. Look at the part numbers on the module of each one and if they are the same then you can swap it. I believe it is under the center armrest console behind e-brake.

Thanks,

turns out the control module from my 98 junkyard acquisition has a different connector- won't work, so I found a cheap source of OBDII to serial port cables and downloaded the Ross-tech SW. We'll see how it goes.

ACU is located directly under the heater box, up by the firewall- had to go there anyways to fix the heater temp control lever.