So I stop at the nearby gas station to pick up something to drink for my drive. I had my seat belt on from home to the gas station. I go inside and come back out and now my seat belt is locked. It's acting the the safety locking mechanism has gone off and has perma locked my seat belt.

I check the wires to the lock and everythings connected fine. Checked fuses. The passenger side works fine.

I've contacted dodge, but all they can offer me is to come down and look at it(for an obvious fee). I asked about prices to get it fixed, I was quoted that it would cost $300 just for the seat belt mechanism and $xxx amount for labor.

So now I have to use a sparkly elastic belt to give the illusion I'm wearing a seat belt. If you look on my sig pic you can see the belt draped over the headrest.

Has anyone else had this issue or even heard of it?

 

haven't heard of it but i bet you can get the mechanism from http://www.mintonmotorsinc.com/index.html for a lot less than 300$

 

Some oem replacement parts are reasonable, others are OMG you guys are crazy!
When I wanted to put my race buckets in back in 00 (or was it 01?) Wanted to get some manual seat pedestals to modify instead of wrecking the factory power ones my Indy came with. Stealer wanted $1100(Cdn) for both sides!!! I said no f'in way and got a set of seats from a 98 out of the wreckers with pedestals, belts & seats for 100.

Id be searching the bone yard for that. Easy to get at, just take the door trim on the floor off & remove the wall panel.

 

just take your panel off and take a look....this would happen on my jeep as well as my vette sometimes....usually it was cuased by something like a coin falling into the mechanism. Othertimes gently tugging and releasing would free it up and it would work fine after that...
And why not just go to a salvage yard for a reasonably priced replacement?? thats what they are there for and it not like the belts normally wear out? One from there would work fine.

 

I've checked out the mechanism for anything loose or any debris. It's pretty clean except for dust. As for going to a junk yard, most of them are either gone or the seat belts have been cut up. I was also told it's against DOT regs to use used safety belt locking mechanisms.

 

thats the first I've heard of it.kind of silly if its the same type/year range of vehicle your taking it from? ..got rear belts for my jeep at a salvage yard....

 

I'd love to see someone prove that someone has used seat belts in thier rig. Just make sure it's color matching. Promise, I won't tell.

 

Are you talking just about the belts or the actually locking mechanism that engages when you crash or slam on the brakes?

 

I think they have to be replaced together, not sure though. Never tried to take the mechanism apart.

 

ditto its usually all one assembly...kinda tough and pointless to do one without the other....