Yesterday I took my car in to the dealer to have them fix one of the door lock buttons. The one on the passenger door doesn't go up or down when you lock/unlock the door. Over the phone the advisor told me it would be a 1 hour job and I could wait. When I dropped the car off, he took it back to the mechanic and then called me and said it would be more complicated because since they had to take the door panel off, they would have to reprogram the airbag sensor and pretty much the entire computer.

Now, call me skeptical but this doesn't sound right to me. First, my car is a convertible and the side airbags are in the seats, not the door. Second, wouldn't disconnecting the battery prior to disconnecting things like airbag sensors eliminate the need to reprogram stuff like that?

I know a lot of people here have done stereo upgrades which required taking off the door panels. I haven't read of any cases where they had to go back to the dealer afterward to have the car reprogrammed.

Does anyone know what the dealer might have been referring to, and since I plan on upgrading my stereo at some point in the future, should I be concerned about having to reprogram something in the car after I replace the front speakers?

 

Yes, the airbags are in the seat! And you don't have curtain/side airbags like the hardtop has....I just dug through all of the RealOEM diagrams to see if there was anything in the door related to the airbag and I couldn't find anything!

So I wouldn't worry about taking the door panel off in the future. Just disconnect the battery before hand (as it is a good idea to do anyway).

Now for the current reprogram they are doing, it could be related to changing the lock out. The dealer has no choice but to reprogram the entire car when they connect it to ISTA/P. In this case there probably a bulletin advising the dealer to update the car software in case of this particular door lock failure. BMW may have updated the CAS module to prevent your issue from reoccurring.

 

Have taken door panels off for speakers (in an R56/hardtop), and it has nothing to do w/ airbags. As prior poster said, may relate to window switch fix though.

If you take a seat out (like to put an amp in the hidden area under the carpet), then definitely need to disconnect the battery before disconnecting wiring harness for seat/airbag.