I just bought one. My airbag light is on, local shop says it's the drivers seatbelt contact. Going to clean it and try and use this to turn off the light. Will post results.

 

Great news. Just received the cable in the mail and it worked great for resetting my airbag and service light. As an aside, it was nice to see that there were no type 2 over-revs on the car.

 

Which software version were you using?

 

Kewl! I just ordered my cable - I don't have a code issue right now - but I want to be ready. Did you have to do anything to get the over rev info?

 

Sprayed some contact cleaner into the seatbelt receiver and used a piece of cardboard to clean the contacts. Cleared the code and it's sorted.

Indy wanted $800 to replace the receiver and reset the light...

 

Well, friends, it appears that the cable worked, but what software are you using to instruct reset the airbag light? For those who have used the cable to reset the airbag light, has the light come back later? After spending over $2K in new seat belt buckles over the last seven years between two Boxsters, I really don't want to spend anymore money on seatbelt buckles for my 997 if there is a relatively easy fix. What do I need to do to clean the seatbelt buckle contacts? Is there a published procedure? Thanks in advance for any help.

Ben

 

Ben, we just did one at the shop (driver's side buckle), parts from Leith Porsche with labor was under $400 if I remember correctly. We have the Durametric btw, though to be honest I'd have been interested in the knock off if I didn't have access to the real thing.

 

I ordered one of these cables and can do all of the live engine monitoring but get an error code when trying to check codes. I have heard of similar issues with the authentic cables. Maybe it is just my computer?

 

SimonP5150, did you have to take your driver's seat out to clean the seat belt buckle contancts? Or, did you just spay the contact cleaner into the seatbelt receiver and then just put the cardboard in and out of the receiver to clean the contacts?

 

OK, bought the cable. However, I have tried to install the driver on Windows 7 with no luck and tried to install it on a VM instance running Windows XP on my Mac. No luck yet. Anybody had any luck installing the driver on Windows 7 or on a VM instance running XP on a Mac?

 

I ended up having to download software from the durametric website. After installing it, you can uninstall and then install the old software. My software works, but like I said, it won't let me clear my airbag code.

 

I sent in a tech support ticket to the Chinese PIWIS folks, and they said that the software will only run on Windows XP. Hmmm, now to find an old XP machine. This is getting aggravating. I have about 2 hours in trying to make this thing work. Thinking more about buying the Durametric cable, though I wish they had a Mac version of their software.

 

Sorry to resurrect this from the dead, but as the OP, I'd like to post a final update, since I ended up buying the cable.

It worked, but not without a ton of difficulty. First, the drivers it comes with are only for Windows XP (as stated by another poster above). After much aggravation of trying to get the current drivers off the Durametric website, I finally paid my brother-in-law (who does IT for a living) $20 to get me drivers that would work with Windows 7. I'm not sure what kind of magic he performed, but he made fun of me for being incompetent with computers. Most of you could probably figure it out without a problem.

Then once we got it working, the cable would only access my engine faults, and nothing else. Turns out you have to tell the cable that a 996 is actually a 993 to get it to access the airbag light. Once I figured that out, it worked like a charm and reset my light.

Also, it comes with Durametric version 3. And that's what I used to clear my fault.

 

Drivers are generic USB drivers that allow the OBD cable to talk to the new(er) OS systems like Windows7 and are not Duramteric specific. You can download these off any sites that support the USB -> OBD interface. Once installed, you should be able to use any other OBD cable for other cars as well.

 

One trick for 996 is on the older SW to select 993 to reset the airbag light. I ran into that issue removing the seats for Status seat install.