Airbag seat sensor BYPASS is draining battery

[jeffmiller]

2006 X5 3.0 6MT

Airbag light came on, local indy shop identified it as a broken passenger seat sensor. recommended I pickup a bypass to get the airbags working again.

Purchased the bypass (which included the seatbelt sensor) from Airbag360.com. (2006 models had slightly different sensors than earlier X5s, which I learned the hard way).

installed both sensor bypass units and ended up with a dead battery the next day (Airbag light did turn off though). Jumped it and continued to have dead batteries for the following week. Had battery/alternator checked out at auto zone. Both a-ok. I removed the sensors since it's the only thing I've recently changed. Battery problems immediately stopped.

Waited a month, no battery problems, so tried installing the sensors again. Again within 24 hours the battery was dead. And continued to die for the following week.

JUST TO BE SURE, I repeated the removal/ reinstall process for a third time. Same results.

Contact to Airbag360 has not gotten anywhere. ("I'll ask technician...")

Anybody have any thoughts? My next move is to have BMW fix the seat sensor, which I hear is $1k! (also my car does NOT qualify for the seat sensor recall - it's build date is 60 days too late. Grrr.)