SRS trouble light solved - 2007 Prius (rebuilt)

First off, I'm so very grateful for all the previous posters on this and other threads. They have greatly helped me troubleshoot some things on my Prius.

I have a 2007 Prius I bought as a Salvage Rebuild in Brooklyn, New York (I'm in Columbus, OH). Unfortunately, the repair quality done was way less than stellar. Regardless, I got a 2007 Prius with 12k miles for $12k and still seems well worth the money.

Anyway, I drove the 500+ miles back to Ohio with no problems whatsoever. I averaged about 49MPG despite the 65-70mph speeds. After a month or so, however, the SRS light came on and stayed on.

Consulting with the seller, he said "90% sure it's the wiring in the driver's side airbag area". So, thanks to PriusChat I learned how to safely remove the steering pad with airbag and saw the lousy wiring repair job. After the pyrotechnics fired, the wires typically get fried to one extent or another. So, I bought a new set of wires and soldered them in carefully complete with heat-shrink tubing. After a few power-on/drive cycles the light went off!... for several days... then came back on. After another week or so I finally got time again to redo the soldering. Same thing... went off a while later... then back on.

Finally, again thanks to this group, I learned how to cause the SRS airbag control unit to blink out the trouble codes. It showed the steering squib AND the passenger seatbelt "pretensioner" as problems.

When I removed the column cover for that seatbelt (surprisingly easy)... I found the yellow connector was unconnected and covered in black electrical tape. Guess what it was holding into the connector? A resistor (presumably 1 ohm). The fools who "fixed" the car just stubbed out the pretensioners rather than replacing them.

The resistor was making intermittent contact in the connector. For now I just angled the leads outward to make better contact upon insertion and taped it back up. The SRS light IMMEDIATELY went out and stayed out upon the next power up. So, I plan to get replacement belts sometime, but for now the SRS system is happy and the airbags enabled again. I'd better verify the passenger side plus curtain airbags have indeed been replaced.

Takeaways:

1) Make sure you disconnect the battery and wait at least 90 seconds before messing with the SRS system.
2) Make the required jumper using an OBD connector to flash out the SRS codes according to the service manual (found online in PDF form)
3) Locate and inspect the areas the codes point to.
4) Don't assume it's bad wiring - it could just be a loose connector or a lousy repair job.
5) The SRS light should go out immediately if the problem is fixed and not need to take several cycles to report all is well.
6) Be grateful for this forum!

Scott