Seatbelt issue

[leenowell]

Hi all

I have a bit of an odd one. The seat belts in my car have a plastic popper in them to top the buckle falling to the end when not in use One rear sea t belts has somehow got over the popper and is sitting the wrong side. I ha ve tried (with some force) to get it back but the popper istoo wide to go t hrough slot in the buckle and too thick to go through the main bit the seat belt goes through.

Anyone know a trick for getting it back? Tried seperately the popper but th at seems stuck fast too

Thanks

Lee

[Brian Gaff]

Any idea how it got the wrong side in the first place? Normally they are a kind of popper thing, as a friends car is missing one.

Brian

[newshound]

You can buy replacement poppers (eBay, I guess) if you have to destroy the old one. Sounds like the easiest solution to me.

You will have tried the obvious? Warming it up, silicone lubricant?

Could you temporarily widen the slot by springing it out of plane (if you see what I mean). I suspect though that you would be more likely to deform it permanently. You would not want to do this with a screwdriver because of the risk of damaging the belt, but perhaps you could grip each side with a big mole wrench? Especially for an all-metal buckle, it would be hopeless for the type where the slot has a plastic grommet to protect the belt.

[leenowell]

No idea how it got that way. It went for an MOT a week ago so assume it hap pened after that somehow.

Yeah tried grips, screwdriver etc and nothing doing. It is like one of thos e seemingly impossible puzzles you can buy. There is probably a certain ang le/ sequence etc and somehow it got into that position. I wonder if it woul d fail an MOT without it? It is on the centre seatbelt in the back so all i t does it stops it sitting on the seat.

Thanks for the eBay tip will take a look. Destroying it does seem the easie r option.

[Martin]

Try twisting the belt and moving the plastic thing to one side of the slot. That is how it got on the wrong side of the slot, it's also how to get it back on the right side. Been there and done it.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Funny - same thing happened to the centre rear belt in my car, caused by dragging a Christmas tree which didn't really fit in the car through it. I fixed it at the weekend ready for the MoT later this week. The plastic sleeve had pulled out of the seat and has a deliberate split in it presumably to thread it on the belt in the first place, but it needed a lot of force to bend it enough to get the popper back through.

[leenowell]

Aha. So the plastic bit that covers the metal buckle has a split in it to allow the popper to pass through?

[Brian Gaff]

Cut it out and go to a leather workers suppliers see if you can borrow one of their rivet thingies. I'm sure they have a real name, and they work like a non removable press stud applied by a tool. At least then it will look right. Brian

[leenowell]

You can get replacement ones on eBay for £2 a pair. Will just do that . Would be interesting though where not having one would fail an MOT. I can 't see why it would as they serve little safety benefit as far as I can tel l

[David]

Had this and can't remember how I fixed it. The problem only happened when folding down the rear seats to make more space. One seat belt came with a small bolt, washers and nut through it to make the stop larger. When folding down the seat it was a good idea to clip the seat belt6s in, otherwise you could get in the position where you couldn't fold the seats back up.

Cheers

Dave R

[leenowell]

Funnily enough I have had these seats down a couple of times over the past couple of weeks. Wonder if it got stuck somehow and forced it into this situation. The seats are very heavy and lots of leverage

[Rob Morley]

Twist/fold the belt diagonally so it covers the stud then yank it through.

[FMurtz]

You can buy aftermarket ones.