HELP PLEASE

[wotnoburgers]

Hi All,
I would like to request some help please
Long long short short my 06 V8V went in to a body shop for some simple body work. No problem with that but whilst in their care they managed to snap the handbrake cable. They agreed to change FOC. All good so far.
To Change the handbrake cable they took the drivers seat out. No idea if this the correct way but they did. Whilst the seat was out they must have tried to start the engine? But either way the airbag warning light has come on probably due to the seat being removed.
Now this is where the fun starts.....
The car is currenltly in Leighton Buzzard Bedfordshire. Over the last two months it has been to Desmond small in Olney - Complete run around and waste of time! Then it went to AM Western Ave - better luck here but they could not fix it, but recommended Chiltern Aston so it went there and again a waste of time.

My question is this ? How hard can this be? The body shop in question are more than happy to pay for the services of someone to have the fault cancelled but dont have the correct diagnostics to do it them selves!
Hence my question - HELP please?

Ive lost most of the summer without the Aston due to this crazy run around.

Can any one help or know anyone that can help in the Bucks, Herts and beds area?
The body shop are now trying works but im hearing they are so busy cant fit it in for a month!!!!


My email is [e-mail]


PLease help

Thankyou

Dave Watson

[vernierMike]

Had the same on a Cayman - I idiotically switched on the ignition with the driver's seat completely out whilst I was doing cooling system and belt change etc. Then needed a specialist reset to be done by local Porsche specialist, not main dealer. Still cost me £60 for basically 15 mins work... but you need the right kit so they have you by the short and curlies.

So it sounds like a top notch specialist or main dealer should be able to reset with the right diagnostic kit/laptop. Alternative suggestion - get a price from one of these, take it off the price quoted for you work plus some for inconvenience and get it reset yourself? Or just insist they stop fanning around and get it reset.

[bentley01]

Try Mike at Bamford Rose. Not much that they can’t fix.

[telum01]

Hard to diagnose over the internet, but.. if it was just a matter of the car being turned on while the seat was out/disconnected, then that's an easy warning light to clear. If it isn't able to clear, then I'd suspect that something was damaged. I'd pull the seat out and inspect the connectors and wiring to make sure everything's as it should be and proceed from there.

[sukh_m]

I'm in Milton Keynes so would recommend Aston Martin works. I'm surprised you drove straight past it to get to the place in Olney! Yes they maybe pricier than others, but you could just ask them to diagnose the issue then take it from there.

[8Tech]

vernierMike said:

Still cost me £60 for basically 15 mins work...

Not taking into account of the £3500.00 (Snap-On) to £11,000.00 (Launch) the equipment probably cost to purchase initially, plus the £75.00 per month subscription fee (Snap-On) to keep that equipment updated.

I think that £60.00 was reasonable.

Plugging in should give a code as to the reason the airbag light is on. It will not be an occupancy sensor because drivers seats do not have them, so possibly a seat belt issue.

[Big Ry]

Seeing as it sounds like you're close to MK anyway (Leighton Buzzard), I would just bite the bullet and run it into Works. Yes it's going to cost "someone" a few quid, but at the moment you've got a car that you're not using or enjoying due to this. Remember there is a chance that something is genuinely broken as Telum has said, and the last thing you want is to be driving around in a car where either the airbag could go off for no reason, or may not go off at all if needed. Neither option is good.

Clearly both Desmond Smail and Chiltern have the tech to reset an incorrect warning light (both who are excellent garages IMHO), so the fact that they can't does potentially lead to there genuinely being an issue.

[Incognegro]

Hi as you go near MK, I'd deffo say run it into the works factory. Shaun is a Top guy and all the team there are in my experience.

[a98pmalcolm]

Yep, to change the handbrake cable the seat needs to come out..

After removing the seat the airbag light will indeed come on..

But its is simply turned off with AMDS which any dealer should have...

I know this because when I bought my car from a trade sales place they had change the handbrake cable.

You are extremely close to Aston Martin works in Newport Pagnell which is my local place, really good bunch.
Simon Voakes is the service manager. I'm sure they will be able to help.

Failing that, at a little more of a journey Bramford Rose maybe to help, just had some work by them, a great company to deal with..

[vernierMike]

8Tech said:

Not taking into account of the £3500.00 (Snap-On) to £11,000.00 (Launch) the equipment probably cost to purchase initially, plus the £75.00 per month subscription fee (Snap-On) to keep that equipment updated.

I think that £60.00 was reasonable.

Plugging in should give a code as to the reason the airbag light is on. It will not be an occupancy sensor because drivers seats do not have them, so possibly a seat belt issue.

A veritable 'short-and-curlies' commercial daisy chain... My point was that it is one of those elements where one MUST have it reset by a garage that has so invested and it's not something that can be DIY. Maybe it is on an Aston, but I doubt it.

In the Cayman an airbag test is run when ignition switched on and one imagines it sensed a potential fault as it couldn't find one! Fair enough. But there was no problem with the airbag once re-installed but the code was left on by default. I just needed the code cleared.

All the overheads of a business are usually wrapped into the hourly rate and not specifically allocated, £60 for a generous quarter of an hour is a strong hourly rate but agreed not that outrageous in the context of premium marque dealer rates (this was a small but good Porsche Specialist local to me, so would be).

Some codes are resettable with a cheap OBDII plug-in device and some are deeper in the system whence they cannot be reached by cheap DIY tat to be irresponsibly and repeatedly reset. In principle these safety related codes may be put deeper in because this would force a review of the safety fault by a garage that has thus invested. Invariably, and sensibly in the situation where the light has been triggered by an act such as temporary removal, 'given the circumstances, come back if it does it again' is an excellent piece of advice but one one would hope a car owner would self-heed particularly as it tells you it's an air bag fault.

[rossyl]

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