Hi All,
I am asking this question for a friend. She has an old Honda Civic wagon - circa 1987 or so. Recently, the driver’s seat belt has been sticking such that it will not pull out. I managed to get it to release by giving it a really good hard yank, and we’ve clipped it temporarily to prevent it from retracting all the way when she is not wearing it. She can remove the clip and use it when she drives, atvleast for now. But I have a couple of questions: is the seatbelt still safe to use - in other words will it still work if she’s in an accident? Also, if it is safe, is there any way to easily see the retractor mechanism to figure out what is happening? It seems to be hanging up on that little “button” on the belt - not sure what purpose that little dot serves? I appreciate your input. Additional info you may or may not find helpful: car has about 120K miles on it, and has never been in an accident - she’s the original owner. The seatbelt itself, for those who have not sen this model, is attached to the door. The top buckle is in a fixed position - it does not move. The movement of the belt, bottom and top, seems to come from inside of the door. Thanks again.
The button was there to keep the belt from retracting too far, yours must be worn down.
at one time Honda had a life time warranty on seat belts i don’t know if that is still true or not.
at one time Honda had a life time warranty on seat belts i don't know if that is still true or not.
At one time MOST manufacturers had a lifetime warranty on seat belts. But it was only for the original owner. And 1987 was in that time period.
Thanks - I’ll pass this along. Maybe we can just enhance the profile of the worn down dot.
I had this problem w/a late 1970’s VW Rabbit one time. It turned out to be a small spring in the seat belt mechanism that had become less springy than it was when new. The spring force constant had diminished over time in other words.
The seat belt mechanism is designed so that you can pull the belt out slowly, but if you jerk on it, it won’t pull. That’s so it doesn’t pull out if you get in a wreck, which is a good thing.
It’s done with a little inertia sensing gadget, and the spring is part of this mechanism. I can’t say if this is theOP’s problem, but it’s a possibility at least.
To fix the VW, all I had to do was shorten the spring a little, to make it more springy.
Come to think of it that old VW Rabbit had a lot of weird problems … lol …