New owner saying hello

[matthewp]

Hi there,

I just bought a brand new (to me) '98 540i 6-speed. I've been wanting to get a bimmer for a while, as I wanted something fast, to make up for the bike I miss, and stylish, cause I'm shallow, and I found the right one for me, ie quick, sexy, and dirt cheap.

The major highlights are 130k miles, an almost complete lack of pixels in both displays (yeah I read about calling BMWNA etc), a passenger side wiper doesn't move (there is no resistance to free movement so a linkage to the motor must be gone, right?), airbag warning light on, broken driver seat-extension retraction button, intermittent steering wheel raising/lowering, and various paint and leather scuffs/chips (and obviously no cup holders). In other words nothing major aside from the air bags which I should fix (if what I read is correct about this meaning all bags will deploy in a crash!!).

I'm a shade tree mechanic, so I'll be asking ye for some help occasionally.

Any suggestions on how I should start with the airbag light? I took the car to an autoparts store to get the computer read and there were no codes, so that gave me no info about the airbag light. Should I remove the seats to see if the occupancy connectors are properly seated? If I fix it at this stage will the light go off or will it stay on until some sort of reset?

Thanks guys,
Matthew

[jonmcc]

congrats on the car and welcome to bf.c sounds like you have some things to do right off the bat! good luck

[FP5241]

Congrats on the pick up.

Dont forget to read thru the sticky threads at the top of the main page... TONS of useful links, DIY's etc....

[GMT400Tahoe]

Welcome to the E39 subforum! Be sure to check out the write-ups on BMWTips.com for some helpful articles if you haven't already.

[macbookproaudio]

welcome bro! make sure u get pics asap (i think its 20 posts?)

but there was a recall on some of the passenger seat occupancy sensors but it was only for 04+ cars (after our model yrs) but maybe that sensor is bad (of course check the connections first)