Battery Disconnect Oddities
 

I've disconnected the battery many times, but this time, after installing a new steering wheel and airbag, my PCM no longer recognizes my "CD Changer", which is actually a Dension Gateway 500. Also, I am getting an airbag warning light.

The warning light hasn't gone out after 10 miles. It's the same (round) bag. Perhaps the harness is different? If so, I can easily swap them, or is it smarter/ safer to get the dealer to simply reset the light, and re-find my CDC? I think they'll do it for me for free.
CATTMAN

I would try swapping the airbag with the other one that did work. I would then take it to the dealer to get them to make sure that everything is working.

As for the CDC, the dealer needs to tell the system that it has a Changer, you need access to a PIWIS to do that.

What steering wheel did you install?

Ed, what's odd is that my PCM was seeing the CDC until I disconn'd the battery. It's since disappeared. I've unplugged the fiber optic from the amp, to try to reset things. We'll see.

And yeah, I'll put the original airbag in and see what happens. Nothing is ever easy!
CATTMAN

My first 997 sat in the the body shop for 5 months and when it finally came out, they had to tell the car it had heated seats. I guess the memory on certain options is on one computer and the back up power supply seems to have a random life span.

Dension or any other cd changer replacements do not require any PCM programming, so, theoretically, it may not be affected by power offs as there is no PCM configuration for them what may be lost. you dension is no different from my mobridge and I did disconnect it million times.

now, if your other components still show up as you press main+trip then may be, MAY BE you dension module went into sleep mode or silent mode or configured itself into different car configuration?

i had hard time with my mobridge as it came preconfigured for mercedes and it was excatly what was going on - my phone would pair with it but PCM was showing nothing at all. as soon as i configured it over bluetooth from notebook into porsche mode it re-appeared and worked just fine ever since.

do you have any interface to your dension you could use to check its configuration and status?

I was told that the airbag warning light coming on after a battery disconnect is fairly common. Apparently sometimes it turns off after a short drive, but other times not.

Mine has been on for a little while after having the battery disconnected for a 9500ci custom install.