In the 6 years I've owned this van, the airbag light has come on a few times, stayed on for several days, and then stayed out for months/years. Now that I want to sell it, the pesky light is back, and is on more than it is off (bumps in the road set it on/off occasionally). Looking at the service manual, I see that the connector on the airbag computer (located under the front passenger seat carpeting) has a built in jumper which grounds the low side of the airbag lamp, illuminating it, when you pull the connector off of the computer. When the connector is seated properly, the jumper is supposed to open, and let the computer control the airbag lamp. Apparently the jumper is an anti-tampering device. I suspect that the jumper is not fully retracted and is making intermittent contact and falsely lighting the airbag lamp. I want to pull off the connector to inspect/repair the jumper, but the manual repeatedly warns that you should go thru a lengthy procedure to disarm the airbag circuitry before attempting ANY repairs, and another lengthy procedure to re-arm the system afterwards. They warn that if you don't, you risk unintentional airbag deployment. Do I really need to go thru these procedures before unplugging the connector from the airbag computer? Wouldn't it be enough to pull the SIR fuse and wait an hour or so? It will be hard to sell a car with the airbag lamp on, but harder to sell if I accidentally deploy one or more airbags. The disarm procedure involves ripping out a bunch of trim panels, and I don't want to mess with that unless absolutely necessary.
TIA, Paul