Had the light on for a couple of months now but only really got round to having a proper look at it.
Just came on randomly one day, and the following evening I had a poke around under the passengers seat at the wires. Sprayed a little WD40 in the connectors, cleared the error and it didn't come back. Yay! Then 2 days later came back.1 Fault Found:
00589 - Airbag Igniter 1; Passenger Side (N131)
001 - Upper Limit Exceeded - MIL ON
Thought it was a simple fix. I've looked at numerous Audi/VW airbag errors on the web and the majority of them point to a dodgy connector under the passenger seat. So thats where I started again.
There are 4 connectors. 1 yellow (what I believe is the airbag), and 3 others (big red/big green/small black) and I think they cover the power seats, heated seats and maybe seat occupancy sensor? (do our cars even have these?) Anyway, disconnected the yellow one, cleaned contacts, WD40 etc and error comes straight back when clearing with VCDS and my Autel reader. I didn't fiddle with the others as I don't think they do anything for the airbags. Interestingly when I disconnected the yellow one and scanned for errors it came up with another error - something about side bolster airbags. This cleared when connected. Lots of other Audis seem to have an additional connector further into the seat (i.e. 1 that connects to the floor, and then another under the seat) but ours look like having 1 connector and then the wire disappears up into the seat. Thinking it could have just been a coincidence that my fix 2 months ago might not be the source of the problem I looked elsewhere.
I had a fish around in the footwell and there's another airbag connector (they are always yellow on Audis I believe). Disconnect, clean etc.. and no change. When I disconnected this one another new error came up - think for the B pillar airbags. Cleared when connected too.
So, where else to look? I removed the glovebox to have a look at the airbag itself. Again cleaned connectors and error keeps coming back. When I disconnected it though I didn't get any new errors..................... does this mean that is my problem? (or wiring to the airbag). Unfortunately the wiring goes up deep behind the dash so its not easy to trace.
Next steps: Ordered a second hand airbag to see if that solves it. The deeper scan on VCDS showed that there were 3 or 4 things that said 'Too High', including seat sensor. Could it be the seat sensor after all? I don't know which connector that actually is though. I might try to locate the airbag controller and just give it a clean. Need to sort my workshop manual out though. Rebuilt the laptop and lost it all so might look into a Bentley proper book. Wiring diagram should come in handy.
Anyone else got any ideas? There was a chap on here who had the error last year (search for 'N131 airbag' and he comes up) but it didn't say if he sorted his problem.
Cheers
Chris