Are Shoulder Seat Belts Suppose to LOCK?

spede18

My shoulder seat belts on my wagon do not lock.
They retract up and down but do not lock in place if you were to brake hard.
I brought it to the honda dealership today for them to look at and the tech said they are not meant to lock?!
Can't imagine this being the case so I told them that can't be and they are looking into it more for me.

So are they mean to lock or not??

MrWhoopee

They should lock on hard braking. Mine frequently lock when I try to lean forward to get something out of the glove box.

spede18

As I knew they were suppose to lock just stupid first tech saying they were not suppose to.

The dealership had the lead tech take a look at them and took it on a road test and got them to lock up when braking. Guess mine are less sensitive then others which is kinda scary.

mosdefbee

Do you have the automatic ones? I do and mine dont lock. I tried braking and pulling and still doesnt lock. Makes me scared haha. Is it possible to change them out for the manual ones?

90shuttle

They need to lock, unless your okay with face planting into the windshield lol!

Also, what did brand new shoulder belts cost you from the dealership?

mosdefbee

So i went to my local honda dealer today and told them my shoulder belts didnt lock. After doing some tests they said if the seat belt is faulty they can replace it for free! Lifetime warranty. Totally made my day haha. So next week ill be going back to get them installed!

spede18

Lucky the dealership told me mine functioned properly.
I should really test them I have yet to actually slam the brakes to test them out.
They said the lead tech who I spoke with tested them himself with a passenger.
Both locked up as they were suppose to.
I think I'll test them soon and mash on the brakes at high speed and see of I can get them to lock up.

Yes Honda does have a lifetime warranty but it seams sometimes it's a bit difficult to get the dealer to actually follow through with it.
Maybe I should take it to a second dealer and see what their results are.

spede18

As for swapping them with manual ones the only way to do it would be to weld the manual parts into your existing body so unless you know a good/great welder I don't recommend it.
I wish I had manual ones would make finding seat swap a lot easier!!

gnxpro24

I actually swapped the b pillar and seatbelt components from an 88 sedan to my 91. via welding. Now I dont have to deal with the stupid auto seatbelts

spede18

gnxpro24 wrote:

I actually swapped the b pillar and seatbelt components from an 88 sedan to my 91. via welding. Now I dont have to deal with the stupid auto seatbelts

How difficult was it to weld them did you add any xtra bracing or just weld them straight on??

gnxpro24

Here you can see how I welded them in. You basically need the entire inside of the b pillar from an 88-89 car

http://honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2972687&page=13

MOD_MAN_EXTREME

There are a few different locking mechanisms. One is a gravity system with a locking pin and spindle which activates as the front end of the car dips, the second is a motorized servo that activates as soon as you depress the brake pedal if it detects your body moving forward (not on all cars) and the third is the inertia lock.

What seems to be happening is your inertia locks aren't working as well or at all anymore. This can happen for lots of reasons but most often is from a lack of lubrication. My local dealer simply sprayed some silicone spray on the locking mechanisms and voila, my belts were working 100% as if from the factory again.

Another upside is that now when I take my belts off they retract back into the pillars as if new.

EDIT!: A big problem is that Honda has superseded the part number for the seat belts a bevy of times (at least 5-10) in the past 20 years and at them moment the only one available is discontinued and awaiting a new superseded part.

I just looked into this again about a week ago (last time was for my Wagovan in July of last year) for my new RT wagon so just see if your dealer will inspect, clean and lubricate your belt mechanisms (they're not legally allowed to tinker with them internally) and hopefully it solves your problems.