1G Seat Belt Retractor - EVERYONE WITH A 1G PLEASE POST!!

[EHeye]

Hello everyone,
We have noticed that the 1G Seatbelt retractor is just plain garbage, it can cause serious injury if not death with the usual 1 foot of slack.

Everyone that owns a 1st Gen Talon/Eclipse/Laser please post the following. I want to take this to Chrysler Canada, as well as transportation boards as the seat belt retractor seems to be faulty on quite a few members cars. This is for the driver side only.

Please post the following after you vote.


Name/Location
Year/Make/Model
US or Canada Model
How much slack is in the seatbelt (feet)?


I BEG EVERYONE WITH A 1st Gen to please vote and include the following information, I am printing this off to fax, so please dont post anything else in this thread except for the information that is needed.

Below is a sample post, do it exactly like that please.

 

[EHeye]

Travis Merrick
Mission, BC
1992 Eagle Talon TSi
Canadian Model
12" of slack

 

[turbolaserAWDrs]

uh what exactly are you trying to prove? they dont make the cars anymore, they cant change every single 1g made?

 

[EHeye]

Well you guys dont have the same model as the Canadian models, so you dont know about this little problem. It doesnt matter if they stopped making it, it is a safety problem with the cars, 12" of slack on a seatbelt without retracting is a big problem and can cause serious injury if not death. We are sorta concerned about this because our fellow BCDSMer Jay Drew passed away and we believe he had the same problem, he passed away from internal injuries and this could cause internal injuries. The passenger in the accident walked away unscathed but he passed away. So I am approaching Chrysler about this problem to see if we can get something solved, I am scared to get into a car with it. My buddy just purchased a brand new retractor and it does the exact same thing.

 

[turbolaserAWDrs]

i dont understand how it can leave slack...it goes back behind you which means the seatbelt rests against your chest.....wheres the slack at....what do you want chrysler to do anyways?

 

[90LaserTurbo89k]

i dont have any slack in mine...

i'm with turbolaserAWDrs...what point are you trying to make???

 

[HokieDSM]

Agreed here, don't understand the point.

I've got two 1Gs, neither of them have any slack, even with over 200,000 miles on the clock of one of them.

 

[mitsuspeed]

huh? maybe its something only on canidian models??

 

[bluelaser92]

Are you talking about the black "boxes" that go around the ends of the shoulderbelt connectors, that show a diagram with a loop of seatbelt inside?

If so you could make this a little more clear right off the bat so people understand what you're talking about...

 

[thehyena]

mine are fine. I have shoulder pads on them

 

[RipperXX]

Russell J. Estes/U.S.A-Georgia
1990/Eag;e/Talon TSI
US Model
No slack at all.

 

[EHeye]

I guess its only on our 1G Cdn. models without the electric thing, basically the seat belt retractor doesnt retract, doesnt pull the belt in, it just flops out the door when you get out, etc. Doesnt tighten against your body leaving slack in the belt, making a seatblet pretty much useless. My body can hit the steering wheel before the belt locks up, like its not even there, no belt nothing, just play in the belt, i will get a picture asap for you guys to see what i mean.


I talked to Transport Canada and they are gettign an Investigator here in BC on this case, he is going to call me hopefully today about it, so we may get a recall on this, WOOHOO!! thats what we are hoping for, looks like just on cdn models though.

Hopefully that clears it up for yah.

 

[kscott]

I put Canadian belts into my Laser a couple years ago.

I notice problems with slack in seatbelts on many cars, and the Canadian
DSM ones don't seem particularly worse than others. I think it's because
it's common practice for the rectractors to have a latching mechanism to
let people loosen the belts if they want to. They also make the retractor
spring weak; my guess is that it's an attempt to get the largest number of
people to wear the belts and avoid the excuse of the belt being uncomfortable.
With that mechanism, and the weak spring, it seems that normal movement
while driving also loosens the belt.

Maybe a better safety standard would be to eliminate the loosening-latch
mechanism, use stronger retractor springs, and require that all cars have
a height-adjustable shoulder belt. Until that sort of a change, my
recommendation would be to get into the habit of noticing when the belt is
loose, and keeping it tight.

When I hit the brakes, the seatbelt does lock correctly.

 

[EHeye]

Seriously, ours doesnt even lock or anything, when you get out of the car it just hangs, cant even force it in, I talked to transport Canada yesterday and they are getting a team investigator on the case, so I will keep everyone informed on this problem.

 

[turbolaserAWDrs]

any update?

 

[RipperXX]

hmm intresting..

 

[91TSi FWD]

Canadian models don't have the elecric seat belts.

My seat belt hangs out the door on the driver and passenger side of my car.

Matt Hauck/Alberta Canada
1991/Eagle/Talon/TSi FWD
Canadian model
Not sure what you mean by slack, if you mean how much hangs out the door, about 6". If you mean how much when you sit in the car and yank on the belt to make it lock, only 2" from my chest.

 

[turbolaserAWDrs]

ohhhhhhhhh now i understand haha i never could believe how the electric belts leave slack....my dads blazer has maual ones like u canadians and his leaves a crap load of slack...maybe its just on the old vehicles

 

[EHeye]

Still waiting for a call, if I dont get contacted by wednesday im gonna call transport canada back, I have about 60 people now with this problem just off of our message boards.

 

[turbolaserAWDrs]

its wednesday? im very curios to what they can to do cars that have been outta production for 9 years

 

[Inwo]

So did you ever get your recall or what?

 

[BoMbS]

I've got the same problem. 12" of slack, only on the drivers side. I have to throw the extra behind the seat when I get out or it will hang out the door and on the ground.

John Morgan
Edmonton, Alberta
1991 Eagle Talon Tsi AWD
12"-14" of slack at all times

 

[wastefuldreamer]

no slack here

 

[GaRn]

i cant believe this wasnt solved much earlier! im sorry to hear about your friend.. hopefully you can get this resolved and maybe save someone from gettin hurt! good work..

 

[rdwng2]

Sam
Bolton Ontario
1990 Talon Tsi
difficult to retract