Occupancy sensor, don't cut wire!
 

Just in case anyone didn't know. If you want to fix your passenger seat occupancy sensor causing airbag light on dash, there is no need to cut the blue and white wires on pins 2 and 3 at the brown plug.
Simply find the little black 2-wire plug, unplug, and plug your resistor straight into it. Or if you really want, remove the two pins and solder the resistor to them. That way if you ever want to go back to a seat pad you retain the oem look without any patched up wires.
The little plug is also a lot easier to reach and remove than the same wires at the big brown plug.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1500138154

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1500138154

Excellent Goran!

Do I need to buy 470 Ohm resistor to fix that?
Could you provide a link to this resistor if purchased online?

Hi Sergey,
I bought this one from Maplins. There is a 10Watt one too but I thought maybe that's overkill. The 7watt one is big and solid looking.

Another tip, the tin? wires on the resistor are soft, flatten the ends with some flat pliers and then you have bayonets to plug straight into the plug. The round wires dont plug in as nicely.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/wirewound-...resistor-l470r

Cheers Goran. Will do this when mine fails.

That's a bit o overkill, I don't think there is any noticeable current going through it. In the worst case if you take say 15V/470 Ohm = 0.032A. 0.032Ax15V=0.48W. I think if you take multimeter and check the current it will actually be much lower.

Good point! I should have checked the current. I would have preferred to go with a small resistor, just wanted to be on the safe side. Definitely, it should not draw more than the entire 'sleep' current of the whole car.

Just a reminder, if it's only the front (thigh) pad that is causing the problem (commonest case) you don't need a resistor, just disconnect it and leave the main pad joined up. ;)

I'm presuming that the airbags will still work. Know to go off in a collision, but everytime in stead of, selectively only when there's a seat occupant detected

Yes, I assume they are active. With VCDS sit in the passenger seat and read the measuring block, it will say 'occupied'. The guys on the forum tried different resistors or measured the occupied resistance and came up with 470 ohms.
When I plug in that resistor, the measuring block says 'occupied'
So I assume the airbag is active.
Another general point, all of our D2 airbags may be past their 'use by' date. So it may be a lottery whether any of them fire at all?

I think used by dates on airbags (they used to have roughly 12 or so year dates on them) have been removed now, as they've tested cars with 20 and 30 year old airbags and they've fired fine.
Provided the pyrotechnics are properly sealed when made, there's nothing that should degrade them, at least not for some significantly long time.
I'm not concerned about mine not firing +++