Yellow light on dash ?

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Wayne Partridge

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Had a yellow light come on looks like a little guy with a seatbelt and air bag.

Does a dealership need to look at this or is their a fix ? :banghead: More $$$$$

Thanks
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It sounds like the "Airbag" fault warning light. It means that the computer has detected a malfunction or something out of tolerance with your airbag system. There should be error codes logged into the computer and will probably require a dealer to determine exactly what is wrong.



It could be something simple like a loose or corroded connector or a bad sensor. Unfortunately, almost anything repaired at a dealership will be expensive...:angry:



Good Luck,



...Rich
 
Thanks guys getting the transmission serviced will have them look at the battery first then get the secret code . You would think in this day and age it would flash the code on the dash.
 
Ford dealership wanted 90 bucks just to do a diagnostic . The battery was tested to be good.

I guess the next step is to check the wires under seat.
 
Wayne,

Most dealerships with charge to do the diagnositics, but typically they will remove the charge if you get the vehicle fixed there...of course they overcharge you enough for the repairs to make up for the free diagnostics:angry:



Good luck,



...Rich
 
I asked aint going to happen . I will take my business else were . They could't even do the transmission flush because of a broken fitting they required. Another four hours wasted.

You think they could give me a coupon towards a oil change or something. So much for Ford Dealership Service . Did I mention this is my first ford :fire::grin:
 
wayne,

Sorry to hear that your dealer will not deduct the diagnositc charges if you have the repair done at their shop. Look around at other dealers or perhaps some independent shops. I have had several shops including a Toyota shop who deducts the diagnostic charges if theydo the repairs The Toyota dealer wanted over $800 to replace my charcoal evap canister (which cost nearly $600) in my 2002 Highlander SUV with 155K miles. I went to the inspection station and asked if I would fail the inspection if I had a "Check engine" light. He said no because our county does not require emissions testing....but they do check the gas cap to insure it is sealing properly. So I am still driving around with a check engine light and the engine runs fine



I have heard of some small shops around here that won't touch the airbag systems...because of liability issues...they don't want to be sued if the airbag system fails to function in a future accident.



...Rich
 
Sometimes I will waive diag charges and sometimes not, it all depends on the situation, I don't work for free and I suspect that no one here does either...enough said about that.





Wayne

When your airbag lights is on do you realize that the entire airbag system is disabled?? How much is a life worth to you??
 
The point is that I don't expect anything for free. I did have my vehicle in to this dealership a couple times and I believe just to read a code is outrages for 90 to 110 at a dealership.

As far as the air bag not working at this point I guess it is better than having it go off on it's own like the f150 . Just charge me hourly rate they require tools to do their job not my issue.:banghead:
 
l1tech,

Sometimes I will waive diag charges and sometimes not, it all depends on the situation, I don't work for free and I suspect that no one here does either...enough said about that.
Click to expand...



So, what are the situations where you would charge for the diagnostics, and what situations would you NOT charged?



Of course I do not expect anyone to work for nothing, but when a repair shop charges $90-$100 to read the diagnostic error codes I thinkt that is a bit high when someone can go to AutoZone and get a free diagnostic print out...which is what I did.



Of course Toyota would not accept those diagnostic printouts but they did offer to not charge for the diagnostics if they did the repair, which I thought was fair. They even balked at my replacing a gas cap with a non-Toyota brand claiming that many of the aftermarket gas caps do not work and they would have to replace it before any testing was done??? What a load of BS that was...so I walked out. My new gas cap passed the State inspection without any problem.



...Rich



 
L,4/15/2011 14:19 MT



So, what are the situations where you would charge for the diagnostics, and what situations would you NOT charged?



Of course I do not expect anyone to work for nothing, but when a repair shop charges $90-$100 to read the diagnostic error codes I thinkt that is a bit high when someone can go to AutoZone and get a free diagnostic print out...which is what I did.
Click to expand...



If I can find your problem in 5 minutes and you get the car fixed at my shop I will not charge for diag. If I find the problem in 5 minutes and you don't get the car fixed then it's a $25 charge. If it takes me an hour to find the problem and you need alot of work done and go ahead with the work at my shop I don't charge for diag..if you don't get the work done then I do charge. If you have had your car to 5 different shops and still have problems I charge no matter what. If you have been to the auto parts stores to have your codes read and spent $300 dollars on parts that they said you needed to fix your problem adn it still isn't fixed then I charge no matter what...next time you will learn that parts stores are in business to sell parts and don't care about fixing your car...truthfully I believe that it should be outlawed for parts stores to make recomendations on what parts you need to purchase from them to fix your vehicle based on what the code reader says.



I just had a customer the other day with a 2005 BMW X5 with a check engine light on, he also went to a parts stores, had the code read, and bought the parts they told him to buy that would fix his issue based on their "diagnostic printout"(does a printout make the diagnostic credible??). He installed the parts, 2 oxygen sensors that cost him almost $300 adn cleared the codes. Less than a day later the light came back on and he then came to me and wouldn't you know the same codes were stored on the pcm, P0171 and P0174 which ended up being a small hole that was torn in the intake boot that you couldn't see without some doing. I charged him $50 total labor and I think the boot was $60...he could have saved $190 by coming to me in the first place but yet somehow I am the one not to be trusted becasue I charge for my services wheras the parts stores do it for free, make ALOT of money off of the sub par parts that they sell most of the time and then say "well you probably needed those parts replaced anyway"



 
I am the one not to be trusted becasue I charge for my services wheras the parts stores do it for free,
Click to expand...



No, it is because repair shops charge extra for things like "shop supplies".



Seriously?



If you went to Wal*Mart to buy a loaf of bread and they charge you for the reciept paper and ink, would you not complain?



This is the cost of doing business.



A friend took his vehicle to the dealer for some repair. I know what "flat rate" is, but get real. He was charged 4 hours for a job that was done in 30 minutes. Of course, if it took 5 hours, they would have come up with some excuse that "something else was wrong too" to make up for that extra hour.



A guy at work took his car in to a shop because it was making a noise. They could not reproduce the noise. He paid the fee and left. Got less than a mile down the road and heard the noise. He went back to complain and they sent the tech out with him. He could hear the noise, but the tech couldn't. The tech was partially deaf. SERIOUSLY?!?!?!? This is how they operate?



My sister had a Taurus SHO that had some running issues above 3500 (or so) RPM. Four dealerships could not figure the problem out, but they all replaced parts that was going to fix it, but never did. A Porsche machanic found the vacuum leak in 10 minutes and charged her a 20 dollar bill. The previous mechanic even had the courtesy to crack a spark plug when he changed the new Motorcraft plugs that I already replaced a week earlier.



Another guy at work had an issue with his Dodge truck having a misfire under a moderate load. After 3 different dealers replaced just about every sensor under the hood, he was into this thing spending over $3,000.00. Still the same issue. He even asked the dealer if the O2 sensors could cause this problem. the response was always, "no, that is impossible". He had enough. He went home and replaced the O2 sensors himself and the issue went away. Two years later and the problem is still gone.



So, while you seem like a very honest guy and if I lived close to you, I would give you some work if it wasn't something I couldn't (or don't want to) handle. Unfortunatly, seperating the honest from the dishonest mechanics is very difficult. So, in my book, all mechanics are dishonest.



I am fully capible of doing a job wrong or removing and replacing parts that are not bad. I refuse to pay someone to do do a job wrong or to replace parts that are not bad.





Tom
 
Tom,,,



They are not LL dishonest...



I will be the first to admit there are plenty that are, but "ALL" is not applicable.



I did mechanic work for years and I was very honest...



Both me and my shop made money, I did not need to lie. You would come back for the simple fact I didn't lie and screw you over.



I have a guy come in and he told me to replace his engine as it was seized up. I did most of the bottom end work when i found a cat skull jammed between the flywheel and the transmission housing.



I could have easily pried the skull out and never told him and charged him the grand he expected. But i called and informed him and gave him many options. We put it all back together and his bill was $165.00.



The engine ran perfect...
 
They are not (A)LL dishonest...
Click to expand...



I know that, hence the reason I said...



Unfortunatly, seperating the honest from the dishonest mechanics is very difficult. So, in my book, all mechanics are dishonest.
Click to expand...



Because it is so hard to find an honest mechanic, I just consider all mechanics are dishonest and fix my vehicles myself.



I am sure you were a straight shooter too, but for every honest mechanic, there are 10 that arent...if not more.



The same with salesmen. Even the ones I trust, I don't trust completely. that is why when I deal for a vehicle, I make sure they know this is "war" and when the deal is over, we will still remain friends.





Tom
 
l1tech,

I am not questioning your honesty. I only wanted to know when you charged for diagnostics and when you didn't.



My point was that Toyota would have charged me $100 to connect a code reader and get the error codes (that's what they call diagnostics), even though I already had the codes. The dealership charges a standard $100 fee to read the error codes..that AutoZone does for free? I can understand that they might not trust AutoZone's code reader and agree that they should use their own reader. The difference is that if I had the repairs done by them, they would not charge me for the diagonostic service (code readout).



I grant you that the error codes do not always pinpoint the exact failing part (as your BMW customer found out) but it does point you in the right direction.



Had he not already replaced the O2-Sensors, you probably would have first thought they were bad and had to run diagnostics on them as well and charged him more. Since he already replaced the O2-Sensors, that's the most obvious solution, and so you were able to look at something less obvious. That should have saved him some money in diagnostic services?? And he does have two new O2-Sensors and peace of mind that they should last for a little while



Had he not changed the sensors or not said that he did, most shops would have told him he needed new sensors, and replaced them..then when they found it was the intake boot leaking, they would have charge him for that too.



I am a firm believer in doing complete diagnostics and only replacing what needs to be replaced and not just throwing parts at the problem hoping you eventually replace the right part. Unfortunately today, most shops charge so much for labor that sometimes it's cheaper to replace a suspected bad part rather than to pay the labor to go through all the diagnostics to prove the part is bad....and frankly, some so-called techs can't diagnose anything.



...Rich



 

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