Expert: Roland Finston - 1/11/2012

Question
QUESTION: Hi Roland. The wires coming from the 98 convertible "sebring" seat are a royal blue wire and a green wire with a yellow stripe. The two wires on the 96 harness are red with a white stripe and a black wire. I can plug them together and get the seatbelt to work. I have to keep it unplugged to prevent the drain on my battery. Is there a way to change anything to get these to be compatible? Thanks very much, Loraine

ANSWER: Hi Roland. We just hooked up 98 Sebring convertible seats in a 96 2.5L Coupe.  We were fine till we hooked up the seatbelt circuit. Then the battery drained out. We used the seatbelt module from the 98 also. What could be causing the drain? There are 4 more wires in the 98. What is the difference? Thanks



Answer:

Hi Loraine,
Although these veicles are called Sebring, they are entirely different in design and manufacture. The coupe is actually a Japanese Mitsubishi-design while the convertible is U.S. Chrysler-design made in Mexico.
The seat belt systems are different too. Because of the belts being a part of the seat in the convert but not in Mitsubishi, you have to use the module which you say that you did. It needs the module to activate the unlock of the belt electrically because it doesn't have a mechanical type of gravity lock-up that is used in the coupe (and most other cars), thus the belts are locked in position unless powered by the module.  So the module needs some information from the body control unit to operate properly and it may not be getting that info from the body control unit of the coupe. Thus the seat belt unlock function, which draws current, may be running all the time instead of being cancelled after 30 minutes.
May I inquire how you wired up the module to the coupe's wiring system? Maybe I can figure out what is missing or went wrong with the installation.  
Did you have any specific instructions as to how to re-install the seats in the coupe or did you just follow your intuition? If you can give me the wiring color re-connections to the module and which 4 wires that went to the module plug in the convert set-up that aren't being used in the coupe set-up then I may be able to tell you what is needed to be done.
I suspect that you aren't the first to try this, so maybe an on-line Sebring car club (such as a Sebring auto Group at Yahoo.com) might have a member that has done this successfully and can tell you what needs to be done to correct things.
Roland

Hi Roland. The wires coming from the 98 convertible "sebring" seat are a royal blue wire and a green wire with a yellow stripe. The two wires on the 96 harness are red with a white stripe and a black wire. I can plug them together and get the seatbelt to work. I have to keep it unplugged to prevent the drain on my battery. Is there a way to change anything to get these to be compatible? Thanks very much, Loraine

Hi Lorraine,
I assume that what you are describing as regards installing the '98 Sebring convert seats in a '96 Sebring coupe is the interface between the seat belt module of the former with the suppliementary restraint module of the latter. Both are located behind the center console. If that is not where this interfacing is occuring let me know.
The '98 convert seat belt module is shown to be a 13-pin plug, with 8 wires in use. On your coupe, there is a supplementary restraint system diagnostic module with a 20-pin plug with 14 wires in use. Are these the plugs that you are joining together and do they mate? Please let me know so I can sort this out. Or did some re-wiring get done already? I am concerned if this is the interface because as I said earlier these are actually cars from different designers so there is no ready interconnection or theory of circuitry. It is possible, for example, that the air bag module is not connected any longer or one of the impact sensors similarly hot connected because a white-red wire is in fact from the right front impact sensor of the coupe.
The black wire is most likely a ground wire for the module. On the convert's module, the dark blue wire is a 12v supply when the key is in the run or accessory position, and I don't see a green/yellow wire on the 13-pin plug.
I hope to sort this out, but it will not be easy, unless I misunderstand what part of each vehicle is being coupled together.
Roland



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi again. I looked at the car and the wiring the first "mechanic" did. The royal blue and green wires are just extenders off the original wires! Oops. Confused you. I was able to find the wiring diagrams for both cars. One diagram, for the 1996 Sebring is on the website: www.corvairkid.com and you need figure two. The other diagram  I found is on www.justanswer.com and was posted by Dave. The guy that did this wiring used www.corvairkid.com.  There is a red and a black wire coming out of the seat belt control module. There are 2 black wires coming out of the driver seat belt solenoid. So far ok. Four wires come out of the seat. Red, black, green, and green with a black stripe. The red and the black go to the red and black on the floor/harness. As long as I unplug this connection, the car battery does not drain dead. The green and green/blk split off to what looks like a fusible link then into the harness. Am I making more sense?
What can I do now? We were thinking of installing a cutoff switch somewhere so I don't have to keep unplugging the seat. Do you think the airbag system is still ok if we do this?
thanks again Roland!

Answer
Hi Lorraine,
I am unable to exactly follow what is going on from this distance probably because I can't fully understand what the re-wiring was, nor can I access easily the diagrams that you mentioned. However, I agree with a disconnect as the solution for discharging the battery while parked. I would assume that because the seat belts will remain locked in the retracted position when you open the switch, that you would be thus reminded to close the switch to loosen them, but then you most certainly want to open the switch once you have buckled in so that in the event of an accident the belts will restrain you. Alternatively,would it be possible to disconnect the wires to the solenoids when the belts are at the correct length to properly restrain the driver and passenger and just leave it disconnected?
On the rest of the restraint situation, I would suggest that you do a fault code readout to see whether there is shown to be any stored codes that refer to the system. Is the seat belt warning light illuminated at any point when you are in motion?
If there are no fault codes and the warning light for the restrain system isn't illuminated then it would appear that the air bag part will work if needed.
Roland