# 01217 Airbag Code



## tt92103 (Nov 23, 2010)

1 Fault Found:
01217 - Side Airbag Igniter; Driver Side (N199)
32-10 - Resistance too High - Intermittent

My airbag light has been on for about 3-4 years. When I reset with VCDS-Lite, the light comes back on within 10-20 miles of driving.

There are about 1000 threads on Audi and VW forums about airbag light problems. Loose connection in the connector- zip tie it down so its tight, connector corrosion, bad wiring harness, bad airbag ECU, replace side airbag, delete the connectors and solder the wires directly, etc etc...

I took my seat out today and checked the connectors and contacts very carefully and they look fine.

Has anybody tried the 4.7 ohm resistor trick with success? I think I will try that next.
So the ECU measures something in the side airbag igniter that is about 4.7 ohms? What exactly is it measuring?
My airbag connector (the yellow one) has 3 wires; brown, blue & black. On my multimeter I measure about 2 ohms between the blue and black wires. Why am I not measuring 4.7 ohms? (I measure > 2 Meg from the brown wire to the black and blue wires so I assume that’s not the one the ECU is measuring)
What does N199 mean?
Thank you for any help.


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## tt92103 (Nov 23, 2010)

Looks like I found the fix to my Airbag light problem. I took out the seat, cut the green and white wires on the wiring harness (on the car, not the wiring harness in the seat) and soldered a 4.7 ohm resistor between the green and white wires.
200 miles of driving this week and the light hasn't turned on. Unfortunately now I don't have an operational side airbag. 

I'm still confused because the 01217 code means "Resistance High" but I read a *low* resistance of ~2 ohms.

Also, as an experiment I disconnected both airbag connectors on both seats and drove around for a day. The codes I got were "Resistance too High - Intermittent". If the connector is disconnected why do call the fault "Intermittent"? Very misleading.


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