Airbag light on after changing out seats

[BavarianZHP]

Sorry, not a ZHP but similar enough to warrant your input:

I was working on my bro's E39 today and we managed to switch out his front E39 sport seats to the E38 contour seats. Everything went smoothly and all of the seat functions work. We started the car and now he has the dreaded airbag light! What went wrong? How are we supposed to reset it exactly? I know that BMW dealers can do it, but it'll cost around $100?

Ok, here's some background on what we did:

We unplugged the car battery before removing the original seat connections and only reconnected the battery after ensuring the contour seats were connected. We also checked that the seat belt tensioners on the contour seats were not engaged (eg: contour seats hadn't been in an accident). What should we have done instead?

Thanks!

[BCS_ZHP]

Not sure why it came on but it's a simple reset with the airbag reset tool. Post up on your local forum and someone is bound to have one of those tools that they'll loan you. Or if you're smart on the coding, possibly you can DIY.

Here was my situation. Moved both seats forward, removed the rear anchor bolts. Moved both seats backwards, removed the front anchor bolts. Disconnected the battery and unplugged each seat to remove. Reversed the process to install the new ones but got an airbag light. BP was here that weekend giving me an assist, he plugged in his computer and saw the coding that threw that airbag light so he reset it. I don't recall exactly where he saw that code, hit him up and hopefully he can walk you thru it.

[BavarianZHP]

Thanks! Will do. We think we figured it out. The seat belt pre-tensioners from the contour seats ('99) are not directly interchangeable with his '03 530i. They changed it up during the facelift. We need to switch them out which shouldn't be too bad.

[johnrando]

I have the mafia airbag reset tool, as I've still not figured out my issue. Lmk if you need it.

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