Question on steering wheel airbag removal.

[TheAirman]

I want to have some custom work done to my steering wheel which requires the removal of the air bag (which is not a easy task compared to other vehicles). I don't want to lose all my settings I worked so much on. Youtube video show people removing the bag without disconnecting anything. No 12v battery. No traction battery.

My question is if I just open the doors and let the car go to sleep, after all the lights go out, is it safe to remove the airbag?

What if I just disconnected the 12v negative terminal?

If I disconnect the 12V, and pull the main high voltage disconnect, what, if any setting are lost ?

 

[alohart]

You could back up your user profile to a USB flash drive using an iDrive command. This would protect your settings which you could restore using a different iDrive command. However, I've disconnected the HV disconnect prior to disconnecting the negative cable of the 12 V battery probably 7 times for periods of 3 to 9 months each time with no loss of settings other than the date and time. I always back up my user profiles to ensure against any settings loss, but I've never had to restore my settings from a backup.

I would disconnect the HV disconnect then the negative battery cable before working on the airbag to be safe which is recommended by BMW when working on airbags.

 

[TheAirman]

You could back up your user profile to a USB flash drive using an iDrive command. This would protect your settings which you could restore using a different iDrive command. However, I've disconnected the HV disconnect prior to disconnecting the negative cable of the 12 V battery probably 7 times for periods of 3 to 9 months each time with no loss of settings other than the date and time. I always back up my user profiles to ensure against any settings loss, but I've never had to restore my settings from a backup.

I would disconnect the HV disconnect then the negative battery cable before working on the airbag to be safe which is recommended by BMW when working on airbags.

Thanks for that. I don't mind resetting things like the date and time, it's setting up the favorite radio stations that bug me. All cars have a different procedure.

Next I have to try to remove that bag.

 

[EvanstonI3]

The only settings you lose are -as mentioned- Date & Time but those can get automatically reset and also any running "trip"measurements like trip odometer/milage/energy usage, basically anything that can be reset by pressing the button on the turn signal stalk. I was surprised to see all Profiles left intact on both a 2017 and 2019 when I changed 12v batteries.