Air bag light ?????

have a 97 grand am and the air bag light is always on had a code reader on it and no codes come up (used a good code reader, not one of those cheap ones) anyone have any more information that may help?
thanks

When the air bag light is on it indicates that the air bags are inoperative. It could be that you have a bad air bag sensor. There are three sensors in the system and it takes two to be activated for the bags to deploy. Unfortunatly, I don't know how to check the sensors but I will take a look at my Haynes manual to see if there is any information. I will look as soon as I can, I have some things going on tonight but I will look tomarrow morning. In the mean time someone else on the Forum may have some more insight.

Thanks, Since Right Now I'm Stumped On This One,

I have looked through the Haynes manual, One thing that stands out to me is the following statement: " Do not use electrical test equipment on the SIR (Air Bag) system wiring." More or less the manual seems to be recomending that the Air Bag system should be checked by a professional, and for a manual that can tell you how to tear down and rebuild an engine it's pretty significant that they are saying "leave it to the pros." I would get it checked out by a dealer since their techs have been trained to repair the system, I normally would not say take it to a dealer but I think that since it is such a good protector system that I know saves lives it's worth the extra $$ to be spent to make sure it works properly. The smaller garage mechanics may not have the correct know how to do the job right.

There is a DERM-Diagnostic Energy Reserve Module that supplies current to the systen in the event of a collision even if the battery power is cut off. It seems that this module also stores diagnostic codes that can be recalled by the dealer.

I had a 98 Montana that the Air bag light stayed on all the time, after my wife hit a curb and $2500.00 worth of damage to the engine cradle and front suspension, the body shop thought that they had screwed something up and caused the light to come on. I told them that the light was on prior to the wife's mishap but they took it to a dealer to get it checked out any way, it turned out to be the sensor located back at the firewall. I never had a chance to get it replaced be fore I got rid of the van, so I cant really give you an idea as to the cost of a sensor.

Sorry I got a little long winded there, but I would get it to a dealer to get it checked, if it is a sensor you may be able to pick one up at a salvage yard if the price of a new part.

Sorry I couldn't come up with any self fix-it's for this problem.

Good luck,
Dan

Take it to the dealer to check the codes checked.GM's factory scan tool,Tech 2 does a better job retrieving codes than the aftermarket scan tools

Dont mess with the air bags, unless you know what you are doing. They can and will kill you if you accidently set one off. I know dealerships are expensive, but they have trained personel. as well as the tech 2 like mentioned, with that you can go into the DERM that Hoags mentioned and retrieve the codes that way. A generic code reader will not do that. It usually only does codes dealing with emissions.