Torn Seat Belt

March 18, 2015

Does anyone have any experience of the following?

My rear passenger side seat belt needed replacing. It was torn and would fail the MOT. I'm not sure how it got torn. I assumed because it was old it had started fraying and just got worse. Or that somehow it had got caught and my son pulled it. But I don't know for sure. Anyway because it was MOT the garage replaced with a new one from Toyota.

I left it buckled up since no-one was sitting there until just a few days ago when I need to take the seat down for a bike to go into the boot. I unclipped the seat belt myself, took the back seat down and then went to buckle up the seat belt again. It came out easily enough but was torn. It didn't jam or get caught in anything. I didn't hear a tearing sound. It was a matter of a few minutes between it being undone and done up again.

I've been back to the garage who have ordered me a new seat belt, taken the old one out to give back to Toyota to send it away and get a refund under warranty.

I am worried the new seat belt will do the same thing though. So does anyone have ideas why this has happened or any experience of something similar?

March 19, 2015

If the same thing has happened with two seat belts then it must point to something in the car and not the actual seat belt system. I would have looked at the spring loaded system that feeds the belt in and out but as I say if two belt systems have experienced the same problem. Get the garage to look at the body work where the belt passes through it. Might be a sharp edge that is causing the problem.

March 19, 2015

They did look at the seat belt and the tensioner but couldn't really see anything obviously sharp. The first seat belt I'd had in since buying the car a few years ago and the problem has only just occurred to that seat belt. When they fit the new seat belt I'm going to get them to check the body work and panels around the seat belt. I might even take partner with me as support, to see if he can see anything as well as garage. Thanks for your comments though.