Retrieve/Clear Continuous DTCs

During vehicle operation the air bag Electronic Crash Sensor (ECS) module will detect and store both intermittent and hard failure codes in non-volatile memory. The DTC strategy employed by the ECS 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 ECS will detect it. For the ECS 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 Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC). The codes can be retrieved by the service technician with the New Generation Star (NGS) Tester 418-F048 (007-00500) or equivalent using the retrieve/clear continuous DTCs option. Any fault codes stored in the ECS 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 254 key cycles have been recorded since the fault was last detected, the DTC will automatically be removed from memory.