Help! I am in Germany and my 2014 Nissan Altima failed inspection due to flashing air bag light. I have not been in any accidents other than very minor fender-bender in parking lot when someone backed into my front passenger side which required replacement of front wheel panel and head lamp. Had windshield replaced previous to this repair. I am not sure when the light started flashing though it has been doing so for months - can't remember if it started around time above reapir was done. The Nissan mechanic here said his initial computer diagnostic device that assesses various systems (e.g. motor, ABS, air bag, IPDM M/R, etc.) failed to show any faults in the readout. He is not sure what to do next! I contacted Nissan Germany about this issue and they told me to contact a Nissan dealer! My Nissan dealer here told me they would have to take whole car apart to find problem and that this will cost "thousands"! I tried the various "on-off" re-set procedures indicated online and nothing changed.

I have 30 days to fix this issue or my car will fail inspection and I cannot get German registration/license plates.
Any ideas?

The Bag Brain probably went into "diagnosis mode" erroneously and now won't come out of it. The bag icon flashing isn't normal on most Nissans, including the gen5 Altima. Codes in the system will make it light up solidly, not flash. There's a specific procedure to get a Brain out of diag mode, you can see it in this bulletin:
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2018/ ... 4-9999.pdf

Note that the procedure is very timing-critical. You probably want to use a stopwatch or something with a sweep second hand, and you may need to repeat the operation multiple times before it takes.

CLOCK SPRING

rdharper wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 20, 2022 4:36 pm

CLOCK SPRING

Nope. An open driver bag on a gen5 will generate a regular DTC and turn the lamp on solid.

Ido not kow what the Clock Spring is? Can you explain?

Would a damaged Clock Spring show on the system diagnostic test?

KL in Germany wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:33 am

Ido not kow what the Clock Spring is? Can you explain?

Airbag Clock Spring:
The clock spring is simply a coil that retracts and expands inside its housing as the steering wheel turns. Its function is to maintain electrical continuity for all the components on the drivers airbag. The components include the airbag, horn, and any vehicle controls such as radio, cruise, heat and even telephone on some vehicles. 2014 Nissan Altima Air Bag Clockspring
https://www.nissanpartsdeal.com/oem-201 ... pring.html

KL in Germany wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:46 am

Would a damaged Clock Spring show on the system diagnostic test?

Yes. The clockspring connects the driver airbag to the Bag Brain by way of the steering wheel. You would get codes B0001, B0002 or both if the clockspring was open circuit.

Your problem is diag mode as outlined in the bulletin. There is no other issue which will cause a flashing bag icon, with or without codes. If the procedure in the bulletin doesn't turn off the lamp, the Bag Brain is defective (but I've never seen that happen, although I've reset dozens of units stuck in diag mode).

One thousand thanks to all your responses!!!!! I took the service bulletin link and performed the reset exactly as indicated using my phone timer app and it worked!!!!! Previous attempts at doing this reset were done with less exact timing of the seconds (e.g. one thousand one, one thousand two, etc.) and obviously did not work. You have saved me from possible exploitation by the dealer who kept my car for 3 days while I had to ride my bike to work (I am over 60) and did nothing but fumble around saying they had not heard from Nissan Germany. Thanks again for all the great information!