Which legacys had manual belts?

[kimokalihi]

I've seen tons of legacys but never one with manual belts in person or even stock in pictures. Which year/model had the manual belts that I should keep an eye out for?

I don't like automatic belts and I found out after buying this car that the passenger side went down when I opened the door and won't go back up. Even with the belt disconnected.

[PhyrraM]

The ones sold in Canada. Or pretty much anywhere else.

All first gen Legacies sold in the US had the motorized belts.

[kimokalihi]

So basically I'll never find one at the junkyard. Damnit Jim! I will need to locate a set on here then. Thanks

[94SS_Canada]

WOW CANADA IS AWESOME FOR OUR MANUAL BELTS!

haha, sorry that makes me feal "Special" ill sell you my T-Leg at a surcharge for the super special manual belts.

[PhyrraM]

Keep an eye on our Parts Shed. There are a few Canadian members that occasionally part cars out and they almost always post up the belts and associated trim for us.

[ericem]

Why did they come with auto belts over there?? Either way manual belts are awesome!

[evolutionmovement]

Early Federal mandate for passive safety device optionally used in lieu of an airbag until airbags were forced upon us as the only allowable passive safety device.

[kimokalihi]

That's so cheap. They'd rather install auto belts than put an air bag system in? Lame.

[evolutionmovement]

Not just cheap, it's time to engineer. And Subaru likes to make sure things are engineered properly than just push them to market (or at least they used to). At the time, airbags were also a lot more controversial than now and the technology wasn't very advanced. This was before multi-stage airbags or real-world data suggesting their benefits in an accident and before they had airbags in every direction, so the seat belts could have arguably been more beneficial by allowing protection from forward or rearward collisions (although the lap belt still needed to be done manually) and were installed on both driver and passenger sides, rather than just the steering wheel. It wasn't until years later, after some small women and kids were killed by airbags, that they went to multi-stage systems with distance and weight sensors that change the force of deployment and designing these things properly takes real-world data analysis that was in short supply at the end of the '80's. It's an explosive about 2 feet or so from the customer's face, so I can understand their trepidation. It wasn't just Subaru that opted for the mice - they were pretty common at the time and probably for similar reasons.

[GX22]

So the auto belts is because of safety standards? Always thought "Those lazy americans, cant even but the belts on themselves" (No pun intended ) You wont find them outside US thats for sure...

[evolutionmovement]

When in doubt, blame the government.

[James614]

Wow, that explains why so many cars had them, and for such a short period of years. Damn government. What isn't they're fault?

Call me crazy, but I hate the erect arms that hold the buckles to the seats more than the motorized belts. They stick out too high to securely fasten small/medium grocery bags (laugh if you will, but walking away from a bad wreck with a box of cookies that's every bit as intact as you are is a nice little high point in a crappy day).

[evolutionmovement]

I agree. After the third day, I didn't notice the mice anymore, but the long arms for the lap belts have been an annoyance on many occasion.