Rear middle seatbelt locked up after 2 days...

[anzac_77]

I was so happy to get my SX on Thursday after all the dramas (see waiting, waiting... in new members section)

Anyway, today I got the chance to take her out for a bit of a spin down to the Gold Coast with my parents, sister and my daughter. When we got back into the car after lunch my sis (sitting in middle seat cuz she's tiny) couldnt get the seatbelt to extend more than about 30cm. We tried everything to get it to move, figured it would be the tensioner had kicked in, but it also wouldnt retract. I was able to get the plastic housing off the top of the seat and looking down into the guts of the seat i could see the spool could move when i stuck a screwdriver down into it to coax the roller. Its now basically fully retracted but wont unhook at all.

The seat cover looks like its been designed to be very difficult to take off without ripping something, I didnt want to take the chance of driving with an unsecured passenger just in case of an accident on the way home (esp on her first wedding anniversary) so called Mitsubishi Roadside (a.k.a. RACQ) the guy who came out was great, spent a while fiddling with it but said straight out that usually its something that just has 2 be replaced, so will be calling Zupps on Monday about it.

I was just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience and if theres a simple fix, i am hoping its something relatively simple, but in any case it falls under the warranty anyway and im not too concerned as i dont often carry 3 people in teh back anyway.

[dannyboi]

The driver's seatbelt locked up for me a couple of weeks ago. I freaked out a bit, but was able to free it by adjusting the height of the belt.
The rear seatbelt doesn't have that height adjustment, so you can't really lengthen the belt. It's probably best to have the dealer take care of it.

[aspir3]

The retractable seat belts are really tricky. They need to be set at the correct angle or they will engage. I think they have some spring or pin that engages when it is forced out of position.

I had a similar problem with my rear belt 2 weeks ago. I removed the belt to dynamat the rear parcel shelf.

When I put the centre seat belt back it locked when it should not have. The seat belt has a bolt holding it down and a little metal tab on the corner that sits in a slot. This is there to keep the belt in the correct angle to work properly.

I would think the seat belt is not bolted in the correct position and just needs to be adjusted. I would suspect though Mitsubishi dealer will just replace the seat belt because of its importance.

[anzac_77]

**update***
Took it back to the dealer this morning, got a call from them after lunch saying the whole assembly will b replaced under warranty but the parts wont be here till next week. I got the car back and will get it all done when i go in for the 1500km

[Lancer1993]

Don't think I've used the center belt in mine, had it only 4 months now. Not carried more than 3 people so I might check it tomorrow. Not that it's covered by any warranty any more.

[D.e.f85]

My 2011 VRX sports back is having this exact issue. I bought this car back in 2011 as a demo, and unfortunately I never had passengers sit in the back seats till last week. My friend asks me “hey why isn’t this seat belt moving?” Unfortunately the warranty has now definitely finished and Mitsubishi obviously doesn’t want to cover the problem out of warranty.

I will try to upload a video of the issue so people on here can see the exact problem and maybe be able to help.

Unfortunately it looks like all the seat cloth will have to come of as well as removing some of the sponge/foam to be able to remove the seat belt spindle from inside the seat. The cloth looks incredibly hard to remove without tearing/cutting it (why would they design the seat in a way that you can’t remove the seat belt spindle easily from the rear ?)

[fearfulmaster2]

I have a hatch back and that has happened to me years ago in the middle rear seat. if you take off the plastic cover for the belt hole, you can use a long thin rod to push the locking mechanism next to the wheel and release the belt.

From memory, if you look into the mechanism, you will see a locking arm that starts to move as you pull the belt. Stick a long thin rod in to push that arm back to relase the belt. I was under warranty at the time but couldn't be bother taking the time. I use the rod that sticks out of a plastic caliper to release the belt.

[D.e.f85]

fearfulmaster2 I wish I had seen your message earlier. I would’ve tried your method,although in saying that I think I did try to stick something in there to release it with no luck.

Anyway I ended up and bolting the seats and managed to figure out how to take off the cloth. There is a black plastic cooking device that holds the cloth together which you can unhook. The worst part about this was trying to figure out how to take out the middle armrest. The armrest has two little pins you can see which you can pull out with either needle nose pliers or your fingernails.Once you get that out it will then be able to pull off the rest of the clothEnough to lift up the sponge to then see the seatbelt retractor covered by a white plastic cover held by two screws.

I was Then able to remove the seatbelt retractor and found that the metal spring in the retractor had somehow sprung out of place.I pushed it back together and then found the seatbelt retracting perfectly again. Then I just put everything back together and everything seems to be okay so far.

It was quite a pain in the arse to do And took quite a few hours.

[D.e.f85]

[bumblebee]

Thanks for sharing this
I'm sure someone will find this handy later down the track

[D.e.f85]

This might sound really dumb, but seriously how do I make a new topic on here? Am I missing The new topic button somewhere ?

[bumblebee]

There is usually a new topic button on the front page under the section you want to use

However
There has been a crazy amount of spammers come thru in the past few months and our Moderator has been kept rather busy doing clean up job.
I suspect there maybe a minimum post limits imposed to make sure the posts are now from someone who is genuine.
However
I'm not.100% certain on that and I will seek clarification for you

[lancerdarryl]

This might sound really dumb, but seriously how do I make a new topic on here? Am I missing The new topic button somewhere ?

Select the appropriate section and it's there in the corner

[D.e.f85]

Yeah I’m not seeing that new topic button. I wonder if it’s because I’m using a ipad by any chance. I’m also using Chrome as a browser, maybe I’ll open the the page in safari.