4 point harness for 08 Exige

[Devilbird]

I want to fit 4 point harness to the Exige S I bought new a year ago; it has an airbag. Has anyone out there done this? Seems there are issues with the airbag, and Lotus I think , are saying that they will only approve fitting of harness if steering wheel changed out for a non airbag one. Any coments??

[bogie]

where has that info come from?

Ive never heard or read that anywhere before

I cant see how harnesses and airbags are not compatible myself

I would contact Lotus directly and get a definitive answer

[bjc388]

I believe cars equipped with air-bags will have circuitry linking them to the seat belt pre-tensioners - and as it's health and saftey I'll assume that the factory won't want to do any mods like retro fitting 3rd party harnesses unless it's the factory's approved solution.

[Devilbird]

Info did come from Lotus, via a main dealer; its to do with the fact that the harness holds you more firmly in seat than std belt, which means in a crash you may hit the airbag in a way which is suboptimal/not as intended, and the bag could potentially injure you...

[bogie]

so the Exiges that come from the factory with harnesses fitted, dont come with airbags?

how do they get past US regs without airbags?

[bjc388]

Bit curious about that dealer's explanation.

Since airbags inflate with substantial energy within a fraction of a second I would have thought that not being too near to an inflating airbag would be a good thing - and correctly tensioned/adjusted harnesses provide a fairly secure primary crash feature.

I can also imagine that in the unfortunate event of a frontal impact that inertia belts will allow some movement simply because only one shoulder is restrained but that's not so likely if you're strapped in with harnesses.

[bjc388]

bogie said:

so the Exiges that come from the factory with harnesses fitted, dont come with airbags?

how do they get past US regs without airbags?

Bogie - I always thought that harnesses were dealer fitted items. So the factory would always supply a "regs" compliant car and if you ask the dealer to fit something else it's "track" usage only with limitations and exclusions - and by then of course the car is already in country.