I bought a set of R56 seats. I brought them to the shop. The tech said the airbag wires had been cut--not just unplugged but cut--and he didn't think they could be re-wired.

Anyone have thoughts on this? Are the seats salvageable?

The whole point of the R56 seats as opposed to aftermarket was to retain the airbags so if this can't be fixed that's pretty disappointing.

 

take pix. i dont see why you cannot reconnect them?

 

Good idea. I'll get some pics to share. Thanks!

 

Have you checked out this thread? There are pictures of how the guy go the connections to work.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-and-pics.html

 

Thanks. That was the thread that I sent to my tech. According to him the cords were cut not disconnected at the clips.

 

Post some pictures of what the "cords" look like?

 

When all is said and done, the only way to know if these kinds of retrofits or swaps work is to crash and see what happens. Do you really want to go that route?

 

There's no questioning about whether the airbags will fire or not. If the MRS module does not give any errors, it will simply put 12v on the airbag in case of an accident. If you didn't deliberately put a bypass resistor on the airbag wire, the MRS module will give an error if the airbag is not connected properly. So if there is no error, you can be quite sure that the airbags are connected and will fire.
You also need to be sure that the correct airbags fire, i.e. the wires from the module go to the right airbag / belt tentioner (Since not all airbags fire at the same time). One way to figure this out is to individually disconnect one airbag / belt tensioner at the time and read the error codes to see if the MRS gives an error code on the airbag that you just disconnected. When you do this, you can be as sure that it works as with any other vehicle that comes with an airbag system. Especially when it is second hand.

So, do you really want to crash every car you buy just to see if the airbag is working?

The real question is: it is safe to have an airbag fire that was not specifically designed for this car. Given the OP's trade-off between no airbag and an R56 airbag, I guess that an R56 airbag is better than no airbag, but I am not an expert in this area.