early this afternoon i was in what would have been a minor fender bend but ended up not being. i was rear ended at a red light by some lady following to close, the car is only slightly damaged. I would have been fine except ofr the fact that my seat belt failed to locked and i smashed my head against the top of th car and my whole left side of my body against the steering. i am ok just some minor injuries and bruising but my question is why did my seat belt fail was it part of the recall?

 

i remember there being a seat belt recall on our cars. soemthing like the red button would fade and turn pink and become very brittle. might want to try the history board

 

Sorry to hear that. Hope you get better soon.

 

glad to hear you're ok.

 

I'm convinced that the air bags on our cars DON'T work.........

Good luck with the recovery......also there WAS a seat belt recall, but try the history boards and you will find the info you need....

 

Dammit! Prosecute! AH! I'm glad you werent seriously injured, though.

P R O S E C U T E ! (that may be a typo, I dont care)

 

Take your car to the nearest GM dealer, if it has already (or doesn't need) the seat belt recall fix they can tell you. If you do need it, then they'll do it for free.

 

I can pull as quick and hard as I want on my seat belts it doesn't do a damn thing, I remember a post from a very long time ago...asking if anyones actually worked, almost everyone said no. (I'm talking like two years ago.)

 

*mental note, get 5 point harness*

 

Glad to hear you're doing alright man!


I asked a similar question a while back regarding Chevys in general, because I've owned 4 different Chevys (75 Camaro, 86 Camaro, 89 Pickup & 95 Tahoe) and NONE of them locked by pulling the belt. I was told that these belts are not built to Lock on hard pulls like a lot of belts from other manufacturers. There is instead a mechanism in the "rollers" with a weight that will slide forward and lock the roller/belt when the vehicle crashes or in other ways make a sudden stop.
If this is correct, I don't know. But it would be kinda strange that all 4 cars from a 20 year period, had faulty seatbelts - so I tend to believe that this might be correct. Anyone know?


Ken

 

Ken is right. If you ever take apart the seat belt you'd see the weight. Drive at 40mph and slam on the brakes, you won't go anywhere! I think it's a good design because my Dad's 95 burban is a PITA and so are most newer cars. Now the seat itself not staying back is a whole nother story. THAT is a problem with most thirdgens. The latch will break and the seat will just swing up without ever again needing to use the release at the base!

 

Makes sense

To bad theres not two safties...then again it can get annoying real quick having a seat belt bind up.

 

Another reason why I'm putting in a cage with a 5 point harness.... however, I think my belts do lock with a hard tug.

 

i notice the car is ticking now for some reason, it sounds like its coming from the engne and now there is a real heavy fuel smell, ne ideas? also its hard to shut my doors now could this have been caused by the accident

 

Fuel smell is BAD. Don't drive it!!! Doors being hard to shut is usually a sign that the frame is jacked. Have any pictures of the accident?

 

just looking at the car it looks fine but then u look at the trunk and it is misaligned and the doors are hard to shut u almost have to sort of lift them up slightly to shut them.

 

Well it probably split the top of the tank where the filler neck goes into the tank. If the doors are hard to shut than it tweaked the frame, it needs pulled probably, and you will have to run sub frames or if you have them now re do them. The insurance may end up totaling your car if it messed up the frame, tank, body and engine. One of the problems on our cars is the front brakes work so much better than the rear, so all the force from the hit was distributed from the rear bumper to the front wheels.

 

oh another probably i have to now hold my steering wheel slightly to the left just to drive straight, wtf?

 

sorry man, thats frame damage. I'd have it towed to a frame shop and let them take a look at it, and give you an estimate on how much to pull it. probably going to be more than you want to spend

 

frame damage can be caused from such a extremely minor accident? that ****ing sucks, but hey new third gen here i come! wil they take the car if they totalled it? cause i would still like to resto it and give it to my lil sis. so how much does an 88 sc with 305 w/ 130,xxx miles go for neways? oh dont forget plenty of rust? i better get a little something out of it!

 

So that's why my seatbelt kept choking me when I was auto-xing.. I thought it was FUBAR... my seatbelt never locks, but when I was auto xing it would trap me up against the seet so tight I couldn't see properly. It was frustrating as hell.

 

Mine works dandy, it locks up and doesn't let go. Love that little guy.

 

I found this out the hard way. My old belts were always loose and they didn't do anything when tugged, so I bought new ones (grey). When I installed them, they recoiled, but never did anything when I tugged on them. So I emailed the guy I bought them from, and he told me to try driving at like 20 MPH and hit the brakes. Then they worked.