Few issues to fix - airbag light and interior

[Kaz117]

Hi all, and happy new year,

I have just bought my Z3 2.8i as my first car, drives excellent, no engine issues whatsoever. Just a couple interior / electrical issues to address:

THE ISSUES:

The airbag light is on, was on when I bought it, but one of the **15** previous owners scribbled on it poorly, so I couldn't tell what it was, but after I was back I noticed it was the airbag light.
It was on the entire time, which makes sense since airbag codes are stored until cleared from what I've read.

The other issue: the driver's seat rocks a bit forward and back. How would I fix this? Is it just tightening a loose bolt? It's nothing crazy, and the seat stays in place, it doesn't roll forward like a different common issue I've heard.

MY PLAN:

I will get windows XP with INPA BMW tools on my old laptop, with a K+DCAN cable and OBD1 adapter.
I'll clear the airbag codes and observe if / when they appear again. Hopefully fingers crossed it is just a connector.

Also I wont do spirited driving until I can ensure the airbags work 100%

Thanks to all who can help!

 

[andyglym]

Hi mate, for the seats follow this link, a couple of hours max;

How to fix your BMW Z3 Rocking Seats (changing the bushes/bushings)

How to fix your BMW Z3 Rocking Seats. The standard seat bushes wear out, and this article details how to change yours.

zroadster.org

For the airbag light, free stuff first. When you have the seats out for the above clean out the connectors with contact spray and check the wires. You'll need an airbag reset tool and adaptor to reset the light.

 

[andyglym]

 

[Kaz117]

View attachment 354569

Thanks for the help! I've got BMW tools (INPA, NCS Expert, Tool32 and WinKFP) installed on my laptop all well, just waiting for the cables to arrive and I'll get it sorted.

 

[PSD]

Thanks for the help! I've got BMW tools (INPA, NCS Expert, Tool32 and WinKFP) installed on my laptop all well, just waiting for the cables to arrive and I'll get it sorted.

Hi, can I ask - which cable did you buy I cannot get INPA to work with a chinese cable from ebay. TIA.

 

[Kaz117]

Hi, can I ask - which cable did you buy I cannot get INPA to work with a chinese cable from ebay. TIA.

You need 2 cables, both of which I bought from amazon:

One which goes on to the Z3's OBD 1 port, its round with 20 pins. It converts it to OBD 2

Then the second cable is the actual computer part, the quality matters for this one.

OBD 1 to OBD 2 adapter: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DDGSWDMT (Is just wires, nothing special, can be cheap)

K+DCAN Cable: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BVSKJ2SC
For this cable we need K-Line mode on the Z3, which is achieved by pressing in the yellow toggle button.

BUT Don't blame the cable just yet

INPA sometimes will not work because it doesn't have the correct files. It took me a while to get a good install of INPA. For reference I have attached what my INPA looks like. It has all the buttons filled in.

If your INPA has blank buttons with no model codes such as "E90" or "E60", the same thing happened to me, it is a bad install of INPA.

Check your cable like this:

1. Check the cable has a K-Line mode
2. You must use the round OBD 1 port from under the bonnet. Any OBD 2 ports straight from the car won't work.
3. Have your car's ignition on, engine off preferably, but can be on if necessary.
4. Plug the cable by itself into the car, then the USB end into your computer.
5. INPA should show BLACK dots on "Battery" and "Ignition", even if the installation is bad (from what I can remember).

If there are no black dots as mentioned, then there are 2 causes:

1: Your cable is bad, get a new K+DCAN cable

2: You maybe didn't set the COM port for INPA to use.

Check in your device manager, when you plug in your K+DCAN Cable by USB into the computer, it should show up under "Ports (COM & LPT)" as COMx (x is a number, mine is 3)

If you see a device pop up in the "Other devices" section instead, then it hasn't been properly set up as a COM port. I can't remember exactly how to set it up as a COM port, I'll try find out later.

You must set the correct COM port in the configuration files for EDIABAS. You set these in C:\EDIABAS\Bin\obd.ini (opened and edited with notepad)

The very top will have:
[OBD]
Port=Com3

Just make sure that the Com number matches what you set your cable as in device manager.

EDIABAS is the back end used by these BMW tools such as INPA, NCS Expert, Tool32 etc. So you only have to do this once and its done.



Sorry for the long post but I thought I may as well include all info needed. If you have any questions I will do my best to answer you.