Johnny Five

Help me with my OCD please, I removed the buckets from my .2 3RS to access the rear to install some leather parts from Exclusive Option and to install replacement leather wrapped seatbelt receptacles.

I couldn’t find a way to remove factory belt receptacle and wiring harness without taking seat apart or cutting the harness so I cut it.

The new receptacle didn’t fit, the brackets were wrong or have changed.

I’m not sure how easy sourcing a replacement part will be. I can send my factory receptacles to be leather wrapped but I will have to butt splice the connectors on the wire coming from seat belt receptacle. The driver side has one harness the passenger has 2.

Im guessing the extra harness on passenger side wire relates to the weight sensor for the airbag? Or maybe not? I can’t figure out why the passenger side seatbelt wire has an extra harness compared to driver side.

My concern is this - if the butt splice fails could this affect deployment of passenger or driver airbag in an accident? Or would the worst case be the computer throws a seatbelt unbuckled warning if the connector failed?

This is really bugging me I don’t want to mess around with my airbags. Any help please?

Todd B

If you want a solid connection, solder the wires and use shrink wrap. The solder joint will not pull apart.

On the passenger seat the extra wires should be for the weight sensor.

Maverick787

Personally, I would have it repaired by the dealer correctly/certified repair. Something goes wrong gI’d forbid an accident your insurance may not cover due to a faulty repair. It’s a life safety issue when airbags are involved. Good luck.

flyjets

Never extend
The CAN-Bus in a vehicle, like any other electronic circuit, represents a specific resistance or, better still, impedance which is determined amongst other things by the length of the wiring harness of that specific car model and it makes a balanced circuit. For this reason it is of the utmost importance to keep the wiring of the device to be connected as short as possible.

Soldering
To establish the connection between the CAN-Bus and the new device soldering is the commonly applied method. An error often made here is to use an electric soldering iron to do the job. Wherever an electric current is running it inevitably induces an electric field. To obtain the high soldering temperature needed these irons require relatively high currents inducing an equally high electrical field. This field may very well interfere with the data on the CAN-Bus or any other electrical circuit in the vehicle, which may cause all sorts of unforeseen and many times even untraceable errors. The sound advice therefore is to always use a gas-heated soldering iron!

Looks like a can of worms I agree go to the dealer.
Ian

Pointbye

You need a professional to fix this. It’s not safe and it’s going to be expensive.

Todd B

The seat belt receptacles are not on the CAN-Bus, they connect back to the airbag module. It's just as easy to buy a new seat belt receptacle and install the whole unit and cabling.

Todd B

The system will trip the airbag light if it there's a issue Every time you start the car, the system does a self check. It's just a couple of wires setup as a loop circuit. It's not rocket science. Solder the wires back to gather and use a good sealing shrink wrap, call it a day.

If you're going to solder make sure the battery is disconnected.

Johnny Five

Thanks everybody I’m going to buy a new receptacle. Apparently there are at least two designs of receptacle for 991 GT car LWBS. One with a 90 degree angle bracket that meets the seat (bad) and one with a flat bracket (good). Exclusive option has seen cars with 2 brackets both ways and a car with one of each bracket.

Exclusive Option is trying to figure it out for me but if anyone has a part number or can shed further light I’d really appreciate it.

Todd B

That's interesting that there's two different versions, because the PET doesn't show that. The 918 seats are options 374 & 375. Here's the part numbers. For the passenger seat, option 553 is US/Canada option.

Todd B

Yikes, the prices are nuts. $704.18 for the passenger side and $673.59 for the drivers side (@getporscheparts.com). Guess is the 918 part number tax.

Mussl Kar

I'm having a hard time understanding why you would just cut the wires. Oh well, think of the money you are saving by doing it yourself.

Johnny Five

The harness was routed in a way that the only option to free it aside from cutting is to disassemble the bottom section of the LWBS - no thanks to that.

Why did I cut it? Moral Hazard. I thought I had a brand new leather wrapped part that was going to fit and I wasn’t too worried about the old part.

EDIT: I’m a pretty decent amateur mechanic and I do a ton of mods to everything I buy. I make some major screwups sometimes that are costly but I’m still big into net positive territory on shop labor savings.

4 cars 4 bikes all projects lots of shop labor saved.

Johnny Five

So if the driver connection failed I would get a “no seatbelt” warning and if the passenger side failed I would get same and / or airbag deactivation with a corresponding standard warning light?

I guess what I’m trying to figure out is if the wire snapped would the computer think “failed connection” default to airbag on or would it think “no weight in passenger seat airbag is off”?

Todd B

You'll get the airbag light coming on for either seat, before you get the "no seatbelt" warning. I would think the default of the system would be to disable the airbags, that's the reason for the light on the dash. The system does a self check of everything when you turn the car on. If you are replacing the seat, i.e. disconnect the receptacle, the first time you start the car, the airbag light will come on and stay on. Then if you drive off you will get the "no seatbelt" warning. The passenger seat will only give the "no seatbelt" if there's a passenger.

You can only clear the airbag light via a PWIS or a tool like the iCarsoft POR V2.0. Durameteric may work, haven's tried it on the 991.2. If you're worried about being in a crash and the wire being disconnected, the airbags would have already deployed by a force that could do that.. The pins in the connectors on the cable are only crimped, they are not soldered, so in theory they could get pulled out in a extreme situation.

Pointbye

You’re talking about a man who cut an airbag wire because he doesn’t know how to disconnect it. I’m not sure soldering is the right method for him.