How many of you check the seatbelts in your car?
Discussion
I've owned many cars, consider myself a very much Petrolhead yet I never checked the working of my seatbelts.
So you can imagine my shock when I've found out that both on my Corvette didn't work at all!
They did roll back in fine when used, looked ok, yet the locking mechanism wasn't stopping the seatbelt. They were pretty much useless and would stop me or the passenger pretty much on bonnet in a serious collision.
I've replaced both of them with all new set and I'm just still surprised that it never even crossed my mind to check their functionality just by yanking them.
AFAIK MOT testers also just look what the seatbelt look like, does it lock in the clip and that's it.
Really weird for such an essential piece of car's safety hardware.
CHECK YOUR SEATBELTS!
So you can imagine my shock when I've found out that both on my Corvette didn't work at all!
They did roll back in fine when used, looked ok, yet the locking mechanism wasn't stopping the seatbelt. They were pretty much useless and would stop me or the passenger pretty much on bonnet in a serious collision.
I've replaced both of them with all new set and I'm just still surprised that it never even crossed my mind to check their functionality just by yanking them.
AFAIK MOT testers also just look what the seatbelt look like, does it lock in the clip and that's it.
Really weird for such an essential piece of car's safety hardware.
CHECK YOUR SEATBELTS!
DodgeRam Van Man said:
Well I may be incorrect here but I have read somewhere that American seatbelts work in a different way to uk belts, in that the locking of the belt is operated by some sort of plumb-bob mechanism so they only lock when the car is decelerating. That means that you can't 'test' them by yanking. Or have I dreamt this?
No idea, but since the car is over 30 years old I wouldn't want to risk finding out is it true or not 
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