Retrieve/Clear Continuous DTCs

During vehicle operation, the Restraints Control Module (RCM) will detect and store both intermittent and hard failure Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs) in nonvolatile memory. The DTC strategy employed by the RCM incorporates a time-out scheme for determining when a concern exists in the system. This requires a concern to exist for up to one minute in the system before the RCM will detect it. For the RCM to determine that a concern no longer exists, the concern must be absent for up to one minute. The actual detection time-outs vary with each DTC. The DTCs can be retrieved with the New Generation Star (NGS) Tester using the Retrieve/Clear Continuous DTCs option. Any DTCs stored in the RCM will be displayed on the NGS Tester along with a brief description of the DTC. If no DTCs are present, the NGS Tester will display a SYSTEM PASSED message. This option can also be used to clear DTCs from the RCM memory, as long as the concern no longer exists. Once 256 key cycles have been recorded since the concern was last detected, the DTC will automatically be removed from memory.