Retrieve/Clear Continuous DTCs

During vehicle operation the air bag diagnostic monitor will detect and store both intermittent and hard failure codes in non-volatile memory. The Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC) strategy employed by the air bag diagnostic monitor incorporates a time-out scheme for determining when a fault exists in the system. This requires a fault to exist for up to one minute in the system before the air bag diagnostic monitor will detect it.

For the air bag diagnostic monitor to determine that a fault no longer exists requires that the fault is absent for up to one minute. The actual fault detection time-outs vary with DTC. The codes can be retrieved by the service technician with the New Generation Star (NGS) Tester 007-00500 or equivalent using the RETRIEVE/CLEAR CONTINUOUS DTCs option. Any fault codes stored in the air bag diagnostic monitor will be displayed on the NGS along with a brief description of the fault. If no codes are present, the NGS Tester will display a SYSTEM PASSED message. This option can also be used to clear DTCs from the air bag diagnostic monitor memory, as long as the fault no longer exists. Once a fault code is logged in the air bag diagnostic monitor memory, it will stay in memory until 255 key cycles have been recorded or until the NGS is used to erase the codes. Once 256 key cycles have been recorded since the fault was last detected, the DTC will automatically be removed from memory.