without the Porsche Child seat and deactivation bar . In the 2003 Boxsters the only way to safely use a child seat is to disable the passenger air bag, and the entire hardware for this is not readily available. The cars have the software needed to accomplsih this, but it is not activated.
Have a two year old grandson who I needed to occassionally (more like rarely) pick up from daycare and wanted to be able to take for a spin with the top down. Definitly not worth the cost of the official Porsche child seat and deactivation bar, even if they were still available. Yes I know that one can buy the deactivation bar, but the seat itself is long out of production and you need the special buckle that inserts into the bar, it's useless without that buckle. And have you ever seen a 14 year old car seat -- yechh!
Instead, I found online a diagram of the circuitry that's housed in the buckle portion of the deactivation bar and built one. It's only 4 resistors and a switch. If you use a solderless breadboard (normally used for prototyping) it's an easy project, once you figure out the logic of the circuit. Mounted it all in a project box (which could have been a lot smaller, but hey, it works) and it's behind the passenger seat so nobody sees it.
You're know it's working right (and the car is programmed correctly) if when you flip the switch the airbag light flashes for 60 seconds at startup (10 seconds for cars built pre April1, 1999) and the light is off (normal) when the switch is in the off position.
If you want to do as I did and want to check your work, the resistance should be 2.25k ohms with the switch open and 255 with it closed. And I'm an economist not a hardware guy, and this was an easy project. Of course, I refuse to accept any liability for your actions.
See pics at
Boxster 986 Passenger Airbag deactivation switch - Album on Imgur
My indie shop did me a favor and activated the car's computer, so as soon as we get another nice day that little boy is going for a top down cruise. My understanding is that it cannot be activated with a durametric, but they had one of the older Porsche tools
Carlos
Threaded Mode
