# Passenger seat occupancy sensor installation



## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

So the PO of my car did a seat swap with some leather seats from a GTI and I'm not sure why, but the passenger seat occupancy harness was not installed during the swap. I'm not sure if this means it's not compatible, I don't have the necessary parts, or what... But I do have the harness and plan on taking the seat out to investigate what needs to do to get it working. The passenger airbag light is always on meaning the airbag is never activated. I want my passengers to be safe in the event of an accident...

I'm new to all of this but my first question is: The Passenger occupancy detection sensor (PODS) is located in the seat already right? It wouldn't have been removed or something in the swap would it? Theoretically, I just need to connect the harness to the sensor and then to the ECU part of it right?

Second: I know it is proper safety procedure to remove the ground from the battery while messing with airbag stuff. Is there any danger if I disconnect the ground to take out the seat and then reconnect the ground and drive around for a couple of days with no passenger seat? I know people do it in track cars and whatever, but I'm new to this, don't want any problems. Hopefully somebody can enlighten me. 

Also, any further insight would be much appreciated.


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## vwlippy (Jul 17, 2001)

I'm pretty sure the sensor is inside the seat, just under the leather (or cloth) of the seat bottom.


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## JRutter (Nov 25, 2009)

The occupancy sensor consists of the actual pressure pad, wiring harness, and control module that is screwed to the bottom of the seat. The connectors are labeled with "do not disconnect" stickers. The leads from the seat belt sensor (2 wires) and occupancy sensor (3 wires) all connect into the same plug housing in the floor under the seat.

When you unplug the yellow airbag plug, you do want the battery disconnected for 10 minutes or more, and ground yourself on the door striker loop before unplugging. You push down on the back side of the car side housing with a small screwdriver and pull up on the plug. You can drive around with no seat, but you will throw an airbag code until you clear it with VAG COM or similar (I have VAD and it worked to clear the code, but generic readers might not do it).


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

JRutter said:


> The occupancy sensor consists of the actual pressure pad, wiring harness, and control module that is screwed to the bottom of the seat. The connectors are labeled with "do not disconnect" stickers. The leads from the seat belt sensor (2 wires) and occupancy sensor (3 wires) all connect into the same plug housing in the floor under the seat.
> 
> When you unplug the yellow airbag plug, you do want the battery disconnected for 10 minutes or more, and ground yourself on the door striker loop before unplugging. You push down on the back side of the car side housing with a small screwdriver and pull up on the plug. You can drive around with no seat, but you will throw an airbag code until you clear it with VAG COM or similar (I have VAD and it worked to clear the code, but generic readers might not do it).


Great information here. Exactly what I am looking for. The airbag light is already on, not sure if its related to there being no harness in the passenger seat or what. I have a vagcom lite but nothing special. Just enough to check engine codes. I'll have to see what I can find out. Thank you again


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## JRutter (Nov 25, 2009)

I should have said the airbag light will be on and the passenger bags disabled until a seat with the right sensor package is plugged in and the codes are cleared. The codes that I saw with my seats were related to the J706 controller module that is part of the seat. I would say good luck, but sounds like you've got that covered.


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

JRutter said:


> The occupancy sensor consists of the actual pressure pad, wiring harness, and control module that is screwed to the bottom of the seat. The connectors are labeled with "do not disconnect" stickers. The leads from the seat belt sensor (2 wires) and occupancy sensor (3 wires) all connect into the same plug housing in the floor under the seat.
> 
> When you unplug the yellow airbag plug, you do want the battery disconnected for 10 minutes or more, and ground yourself on the door striker loop before unplugging. You push down on the back side of the car side housing with a small screwdriver and pull up on the plug. You can drive around with no seat, but you will throw an airbag code until you clear it with VAG COM or similar (I have VAD and it worked to clear the code, but generic readers might not do it).





JRutter said:


> I should have said the airbag light will be on and the passenger bags disabled until a seat with the right sensor package is plugged in and the codes are cleared. The codes that I saw with my seats were related to the J706 controller module that is part of the seat. I would say good luck, but sounds like you've got that covered.


Well, as of right now both lights are on already so I can't turn any more lights on that aren't already on! I wonder if my VAG COM lite would be able to read codes for the airbags. I've never gone into that category (don't want to even risk messing anything up...) do you know the pathing for it off the top of your head? If not, I think I know a couple of locals who could help me out with a real vag com. 

Thanks! I'll need the luck!


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

JRutter said:


> The occupancy sensor consists of the actual pressure pad, wiring harness, and control module that is screwed to the bottom of the seat. The connectors are labeled with "do not disconnect" stickers. The leads from the seat belt sensor (2 wires) and occupancy sensor (3 wires) all connect into the same plug housing in the floor under the seat.
> 
> When you unplug the yellow airbag plug, you do want the battery disconnected for 10 minutes or more, and ground yourself on the door striker loop before unplugging. You push down on the back side of the car side housing with a small screwdriver and pull up on the plug. You can drive around with no seat, but you will throw an airbag code until you clear it with VAG COM or similar (I have VAD and it worked to clear the code, but generic readers might not do it).


A quick question. I already have the harness out of the car. It is not plugged in to anything right now so there is just the seat. I can see on the harness that there is a yellow plug; I am assuming this is the one you are referring to as the "yellow airbag plug". Since I already have the harness out, do I still need to disconnect the battery? I guess it couldn't hurt either way. Here's what I have as far as the harness goes. I'm about to go take the seat out.


















Bladder connector hose










Seat belt sensor (the yellow one, 2 wires) and the occupancy sensor (black, 3 wires) as expected.










And the ECU


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## JRutter (Nov 25, 2009)

I meant the yellow plug in the floor of the car. 3 wires: black, blue, brown. The big plug in the back is for the seat heat, and adjuster motors if powered.


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

JRutter said:


> I meant the yellow plug in the floor of the car. 3 wires: black, blue, brown. The big plug in the back is for the seat heat, and adjuster motors if powered.


Ok, I see what you are talking about there. Here is what my floor looks like and I can see where everything would go, however, I do not have a lead with a yellow plug on it with 3 wires that has those colors? Granted, it could have changed from year to year but the only yellow plug on the original harness is one with 2 wires (green/yellow, and brown)

This is what I see in my floor, 










The original seats did not have heaters in them but I would assume the big black box is for the automatic portion of the lumbar back support thing in the seat. (which doesn't work on my current seats)


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

These are the other plugs that ran next to the big black one that could have possible gone into the floor, only the black one was plugged in when I got under there. 










I saw in another thread where a guy swapped some mk6 seats into his mk5 and the cyan plug is the actual passenger occupancy detection sensor (PODS) The only thing I don't get is on the original harness there is no plug like that only the black and yellow one shown previously.


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

I can see where some of the connectors on the original harness would fit if I were to swap it out with the one already on my seat. I think the PODS could actually just be built into the one lead that goes into the floor. Then again, it seems weird that my plug housing in the floor would have room for 3 plugs with only one plug that actually goes into it???










These 2 sensors would plug in here on the underside.


















I might have to try that out and see where it gets me. Any thing I should be aware of when taking out this harness other than the very obvious plugs that say "do not disconnect"??


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## JRutter (Nov 25, 2009)

Luck o' the Irish said:


> Ok, I see what you are talking about there. Here is what my floor looks like and I can see where everything would go, however, I do not have a lead with a yellow plug on it with 3 wires that has those colors? Granted, it could have changed from year to year but the only yellow plug on the original harness is one with 2 wires (green/yellow, and brown)
> 
> This is what I see in my floor,
> 
> ...


All of my comments relate to where the seats plug into the car. What I found doing TT seats is that every car seems to have different pinouts and/or plugs and housings where the seat attaches to the car. Often,you can't even move just the individual wire connectors unless they actually fit the housing. (The pins from the GTI pods plug would not fit the A3 plug)

3-pin yellow is airbag - different cars have different connectors. (On the pic from the GTI, the yellow 2-pin on the left looks like the air bag) The 5-pin is the pods + seat belt. The black and white plug from your A3 harness goes there. Bottom 10-pin looks like it just has a ground pin in it, but that is where heat and power would be as well.


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

JRutter said:


> All of my comments relate to where the seats plug into the car. What I found doing TT seats is that every car seems to have different pinouts and/or plugs and housings where the seat attaches to the car. Often,you can't even move just the individual wire connectors unless they actually fit the housing. (The pins from the GTI pods plug would not fit the A3 plug)
> 
> 3-pin yellow is airbag - different cars have different connectors. (On the pic from the GTI, the yellow 2-pin on the left looks like the air bag) The 5-pin is the pods + seat belt. The black and white plug from your A3 harness goes there. Bottom 10-pin looks like it just has a ground pin in it, but that is where heat and power would be as well.


Thanks, you've been an amazing source of knowledge while I try to figure this stuff out. 

I might try to swap the original a3 harness into the seat and see what happens when I do that, the part numbers on the computers are different so I'm highly doubting it will work but at this point I'm kinda just curious to see what happens and maybe I can get some more understanding with a VAG-COM. 

So, it looks like I have 2 options, either 1) I try to trade my seats back to an original set, or to TT seats etc. or 2) I have heard of people putting a resistor in to trick the car into thinking that the passenger seat is always occupied. This would be fine by me. One worry another person had with this would be the seatbelt indicator going off constantly but I don't have one in my a3 for the passenger, only the driver. I won't be one of those dumb people putting a kid in the front seat anyway. I would rather have the airbags deploy if they need to, (even with no passenger) than to be sorry when a friend gets hurt because the airbags _don't_ deploy. I might have to look into this more.


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## JRutter (Nov 25, 2009)

The resistor / occupancy sensor doesn't work with today's cars. But you can use one to trick the airbag controller into seeing a seat air bag, if worse comes to worse and there is no way to use the seat air bag. That would get rid of an air bag light for the seat, and assuming you can get the occupany figured out, would still give you the side curtain and dash air bags.

Here is a thread with much more info.
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?4846700-Disabling-Overriding-Occupancy-Detection-%28J706%29-for-Passenger-Seat-Aftermarket-Seat-Install


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

JRutter said:


> The resistor / occupancy sensor doesn't work with today's cars. But you can use one to trick the airbag controller into seeing a seat air bag, if worse comes to worse and there is no way to use the seat air bag. That would get rid of an air bag light for the seat, and assuming you can get the occupany figured out, would still give you the side curtain and dash air bags.
> 
> Here is a thread with much more info.
> http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?4846700-Disabling-Overriding-Occupancy-Detection-%28J706%29-for-Passenger-Seat-Aftermarket-Seat-Install


I read through that thread earlier and I understand what he did but I think the problem with my situation is that I do not have the original pressure pad. I only have the harness. I would either need the orignal harness to work with the new seat or somehow get the new harness to work with my existing plugs (highly unlikely, different set up) or my last option is to find a way to trick the car into thinking it is always occupied. 

Hmm......:sly:


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## JRutter (Nov 25, 2009)

Doesn't the new seat have a complete sensor package?


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## Dan Halen (May 16, 2002)

Luck o' the Irish said:


> I read through that thread earlier and I understand what he did but I think the problem with my situation is that I do not have the original pressure pad. I only have the harness. I would either need the orignal harness to work with the new seat or somehow get the new harness to work with my existing plugs (highly unlikely, different set up) or my last option is to find a way to trick the car into thinking it is always occupied.
> 
> Hmm......:sly:





JRutter said:


> Doesn't the new seat have a complete sensor package?


Unless something has changed in four years, there's no way to do this other than to find out which J706 your car originally contained and to buy and install that unit. It may have changed over the years, so it's critical that you find the same part that came in your car. The airbag controllers in these cars are very particular. A used seat will do, but you'd want to be sure it wasn't flooded or otherwise compromised.

I also see that you have a photo with part of the J706 assembly- specifically where you have the hose disconnected from the missing weight detection pad. When you get the new unit, it's imperative that you do not disassemble _any part_ of it. I was able to pull it from my factory seat and install it in my European seat, but I ensured that I did so with no separation of any part of the J706. This will involve passing the controller, wires, tubing, and other associated wizardry through the top of the seat frame. You guessed it- that means near-complete disassembling of the seat bottom.

I don't recall how much later it was after that thread, but I ended up doing the whole deal like ryan mills and I discussed in that thread. It wasn't that difficult; you just have to be careful with the metal seat frame as the edges are sharp. It's not a part that was designed with user interaction in mind, and I can't really fault them for that. What fool jackasses around with a seat to the point that they have the metal base out on its own? :laugh:

I ended up having to re-fab some of the ancillary layers of the pad due to my antics in that linked thread. There is a "pocket lint" type layer on at least one side of the pad to protect it from the metal seat frame, plus a medium-gauge plastic sheet on (I think) both sides of the pad. I hacked it like the Broncos, only to find myself having to clean up the mess later. 

Honestly, I'd just about forgotten that I had tried that method before ultimately taking the seat apart. Thanks for the laugh. :laugh:

There was some company making a bypass module for BMWs when I was working through this in 2010, but I can't seem to locate them now. That doesn't really help you, anyway, but I was hopeful that they may have an option for VW by now, too.


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

Dan Halen said:


> Unless something has changed in four years, there's no way to do this other than to find out which J706 your car originally contained and to buy and install that unit. It may have changed over the years, so it's critical that you find the same part that came in your car. The airbag controllers in these cars are very particular. A used seat will do, but you'd want to be sure it wasn't flooded or otherwise compromised.
> 
> I also see that you have a photo with part of the J706 assembly- specifically where you have the hose disconnected from the missing weight detection pad. When you get the new unit, it's imperative that you do not disassemble _any part_ of it. I was able to pull it from my factory seat and install it in my European seat, but I ensured that I did so with no separation of any part of the J706. This will involve passing the controller, wires, tubing, and other associated wizardry through the top of the seat frame. You guessed it- that means near-complete disassembling of the seat bottom.
> 
> ...


So basically what you are saying is that I need to find an original seat and take out the associated parts (i.e. the J706 you referred to, this is the passenger occupancy detection sensor correct?) and then I can install that into my existing seat. This would make sense...

Well, pick and pulls dont have crap around here. A3's are rare as it is... Would be kinda difficult to source one I think, hardly ever see them getting parted out. And the dealer will charge me an arm, a leg, and my two eyebrows for this. Where to start.......


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## Dan Halen (May 16, 2002)

Mmhmm... 

There's a “shot in the dark" chance that it's the same part used in a MkV Jetta or Golf. Doubtful, but wouldn't be entirely unbelievable...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


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## krazyboi (May 19, 2004)

Luck o' the Irish said:


> Well, pick and pulls dont have crap around here. A3's are rare as it is... Would be kinda difficult to source one I think, hardly ever see them getting parted out. And the dealer will charge me an arm, a leg, and my two eyebrows for this. *Where to start*.......


Contact these guys: https://www.facebook.com/AutoHaas . They've had 3-4 wrecked A3s in the past 6 months or so.


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## Luck o' the Irish (May 17, 2012)

Dan Halen said:


> Mmhmm...
> 
> There's a “shot in the dark" chance that it's the same part used in a MkV Jetta or Golf. Doubtful, but wouldn't be entirely unbelievable...
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


My seat came from a mk5 GTI. The connections are different and part numbers are off. So I don't think that is really an option




krazyboi said:


> Contact these guys: https://www.facebook.com/AutoHaas . They've had 3-4 wrecked A3s in the past 6 months or so.


Thanks! Ill give them a shout!


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## BoostBeeyatch (Dec 7, 2005)

Been reading this thread for a little bit...Just to clarify, I drive a 2006 Audi A3 with factory leather seats. No heated or power options. does the passenger seat belt buckle have connectors for the airbag plug and 3 wire black harness that is on the bottom of the seat? My seat belt buckles were cut and I replaced the driver side with the proper 2 pin black connector and found the appropriate connector under the seat on the drivers side. 

I was sent what appears to be the same buckle for the passenger side with 2 pin black connector. Only difference is the passenger side wires for the 2 pin connector is black instead of green. Can you guys help me to figure out where to connect the yellow airbag and 3 pin black harness on the passenger seat? There are no other plugs in the passenger side floor; the airbag plug and harness plug are already connected. I dont see any other connectors for the airbag and 3 pin black harness available. Was I just sent the wrong seat belt buckle? Is the passenger seat belt buckle supposed to have an airbag connector and a 3 pin black harness connector? Thanks so much in advance!


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## daviddinero (Jul 13, 2015)

*A similar issue*

Dear friends,
I have a similar issue that I'm hoping you can advise me on:

My wife uses an orthopedic pillow because of a disability.
When she sits down on the 2015 VW Golf TDI Passenger seat, it does not read her sitting there, leaving the airbag off.

Can I "trick" the seat into thinking she is always there and leave the Airbag on?

I put some metallic tape underneath it, but if it is not shifted just right, it does not help.

Thank you friends!

-David


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