New owner

Hi following on from my introduction I have a question which I'm afraid isn't very exciting but kinda important. I have a three year old who will be travelling with me in the car occasionally. The standard solution for children in the 911 is a bar that fits under the front seat with a seatbelt clip on it. The standard Porsche seat has a seat belt buckle that clips into it. This then deactivates the airbag. Problem is the missus hates the Porsche car seat (she wants a four point harness on the boy) - does anyone know of a solution for non-Porsche car seats ie. can you buy a buckle as a spare part and just clip it into the bar on its own? thanks

First of all, welcome to the boards and good luck. I'm sure someone will give you some help, but for me my kids drive their own cars at this point, but you do raise an important issue. Good luck.

You can't buy one as a spare part, but you can cut the buckle off and use whatever seat you want.

The underseat bars (airbag deactivation bar) are occasionally available through Ebay. I do not know if it is carried by Porsche as a separate part .... other than to come with the Porsche child seat. If you find a deactivation bar, you can fashion the male insert (normally attached ot the child seat) from a 944 male seat belt insert. I have read a number of times on the forum of this being done. If you go this route, I will be glad to email you a dimensioned picture of the original insert for copying. I have tried to investigate the electrical function of my deactivation bar .... that is, to see it a connection is simply made, or broken, when the insert is in place. There are only two wires that lead from the female portion to the wiring harness under the seat. I had hoped to be able to publish a DIY for using a simple toggle switch in place of the whole bar/buckle set up. So far, it has not proven to be that simple. Of course, Porsche could have just installed a key activated lock to turn off the air bag .... as Toyota does.

You should consider putting your 3 year old in the back seat. That is where mine rides and it works out great. If you have a 2000+ there are latch anchor points for mounting the car seat in the rear.

Can't you just buy the bar and take the buckle off? http://www.carnewal-europe.com/cpx_p96099.htm I think you still need to get the dealer to program the OBC to turn on the airbag deactivation feature.

thanks for all your posts - another quickie on this subject. Is the buckle the same as a standard buckle on the seat belt? I'm sure I can locate one from a breaker and this would be much cheaper than the solution offered from the dealer (buy a car seat and chop the buckle off)

See my reply to you .... about 3-4 posts up. The buckle (male end) that comes attached to the Porsche child seat and is intended to be inserted into the deactivation bar female end ..... is NOT a standard 996 male buckle. I have heard (cannot confirm) that it is identical to a 944 male end. I have also had several do-it-yourselfers obtain from me digital pictures and tracings of my buckle (cut from child seat) so that they could modify some other buckle to match it. None of them ever informed me later that it did not work.