Passenger seat belt won't retract

[jnorion]

Recently my passenger side seat belt has started acting up. Every time the passenger door is opened the seat belt moves forward, but sometimes (more often than not at this point, but it's random) it will not move back into place when the door is closed. The car knows the door is closed, the dome light and the door indicator on the dash turn off, but the seat belt light just keeps blinking and the belt stays forward, until somewhere down the road (could be a block or could be a couple of hours) it will suddenly engage for no apparent reason.

When it does move, there is obviously nothing wrong with the actual mechanism, it slides just fine, doesn't make any weird noises, nothing like that. It's definitely just something electrical or with the computer, but I'm not exactly sure what to look for. The driver's side works perfectly all the time.

Ideas?

[Murphy]

theres a sorta similar problem with my drivers seat belt, for a while it would only move back and forth a few inches, then one day i opend the door and the cable that moves it, unspooled and popd the trim off.
something in the tracks keeps mine from moving, im just going ot get a new one

i think you just need a new one, until then, unplug it while it is in the back position, and youll just have to manualy buckle yourself in by pressing the red (i think its red) emergancy release button

[HobbyWrench]

I had a similar problem - my passenger side would not go forward. However, if I used the 'manual crank' to move it forward, it would always return.

The problem was isolated to the seat belt computer unit, which I replaced with a used one, and it now works fine.

My first step was to take take the molding off of the side pillar, and measure the voltage to the seat belt motor when the door was opened, and then closed. Here is where I saw an immediate problem - only 6-7 volts were coming through when the door was opened - but the full 12 volts when closed. (Yours may be the opposite situation if this is the solution to your symptoms).

Using an electrical diagram for the seat belt computer, I was able to determine with a multimeter that I had a voltage drop in the ccmputer unit for the right side shoulder belt to go forward (12 volts going for this side but only 6-7 volts coming out).

After removing the bad computer unit, I took it apart to do a 'post-mortem' inspection. It appeared that one of the large 4 electrical components on the circuit board was blown (indicator on top).

Good luck!

[jnorion]

That's a good option to check. I'm a little uncertain, though, because the idiot light on the dash doesn't register the door being closed. But maybe that's not what it's saying at all... I'll check into it. Thanks!

[HobbyWrench]

The door latch inside the door has a switch in it to let the idiot light and seat belt control module know whether the door is closed or not.

I wonder if this is malfunctioning? Under the plastic kickplate, near the passenger side feet - right side of car - is a wire connector where this would feed in and could be checked for continuity. A wiring diagram would be useful to identify the correct wires.

(This would be replaced by replacing the door latch - from inside the door - the switch is enclosed within it. The button/switch in the door for the courtesy lights does not get involved with the seatbelts.)

(Though the idiot light was never an issue for me - I forgot to mention that mine would all of sudden work for a very short time and then stop working again.)

Good luck!

Mike

[jnorion]

That's probably it... the latch has some other issues anyway. I'll check into replacing that. Thanks!