Randomly, the seat belt won't extend in the middle passenger seat. It only just happened today when I had the seats folded flat and went to put them back upright and it wouldn't unwind, it just stayed tight. I tried to feed it back in while the seat was lowered, but now I can't get the back of seat up since the belt's so damn tight.

I'm going to see if I can get the back off the seat and maybe get to the pre-tensioner and somehow sort it, but considering I've only ever had it used less than 10 times or so since I got the car in the past 2 years, kinda sucks it's all of a sudden decided to break like this.

Seriously can't be bothered going down to the dealership to get it fixed and in turn get conned into paying huge bills for it as I have done in the past

Anyone else had a similar issue or know a possible fix for this?

When You Fold The Seat Make Sure The Centre Belt Is Plugged Into The Catch Then You Should Not Have Probs

I'll give it a try, but it looked like it was pulling the plastic clip at the top of the seat.

It's meant to be a design safety feature to prevent anyone using the centre seat belt unless the back rest is already locked in place ie you can only use and pull out the centre belt if the seat back is locked properly. Otherwise, with the seat back still free it would be dangerous for the rear passenger

There's a cable here at the lock

which goes to the inertia belt release mechanism here


You may now just have to loosen off these fixings to get some play in the belt so you can release it from tension

Right, that makes sense, though I'm terrible at reading diagrams. Shall give it a try, hopefully it'll work and save me from the Fiat dealership. Thanks

Had a look at getting the screws and bolts off, but it's all rather inaccessable to say the least. I couldn't get the screws off the side panel and I can't see a way of getting the back off without damaging it. Going to try again after work, but went to the Fiat garage for a quote to get it fixed...£250 for new belt and "zip pack" (£150 for labour). The "zip pack" will probably be the fabric backing that'll get ruined when they go to fix it.

May just have to bite the bullet though and get it done through them

Is alarming when this happens... usually when I clean the car.

Have found the brute force & ignorance way of thumping the front and back of the seat back rest whilst upright and folding up and down has cleared it in the past on the 5dr 1.6 & JTD Perhaps I have just been lucky...

Good tip from daza001... if I can remember to do that next time, cost quoted for Fiat's intervention may help there!

Well, me and my mate sorted it. Turned out that the bolt (not 100% what it's for) that's on the belt itself, got wedged in the mechanism of the reel. After we had mucked around with the seat and even tried taking it out to inspect it, we were about to give up. Then we clunked it back into place after putting all the belts on and then ta-da...it was fixed.

Well chuffed that I've managed to save myself a trip to Fiat and a possible £250 repair bill

Can you & Deckchair make some guides for this problem?

Well, the fact that me and my mate kind of fluked the fix probably eliminates me from a guide.

However, the plastic guide that keeps the belt in place broke away from the screws which held it onto the reel (I think). After we'd got that out of the way, we just investigated further and removed the screws, not really knowing what they did to be honest.

As I said, I was about to give up at this point as I couldn't see a feasible solution to the problem. I was going to have the middle seat belt (which I'd unbolted from the floor to allow the seat to be made upright), just dangle in the boot area, so people could use the back seats. Anyway, when I clunked it into place, somehow the part of the belt with the bolt on it must've been released from the reel mechanism and allowed it to travel normally. The pretensioner works perfectly as well.

Thing is, I'm not 100% this is what happened, but I'd certainly consider this bolt getting somehow caught up in the reel as a possible cause for this kind of situation.

Wouldn't have minded a Haynes manual at some point, shame there's not one for the Stilo (as far as I know).

muppet42 said:

Wouldn't have minded a Haynes manual at some point, shame there's not one for the Stilo (as far as I know).

Click to expand...

Plenty on CD tho and stacks of them on Ebay..

Mine jammed up solid so i couldn't even put the seat back or lower it, in the end I cut it off and got a lap belt fitted so no more problems there, when the inertia was removed it was found that the geared cog inside was jammed and looks like a design flaw so all be aware.

PNL said:

Plenty on CD tho and stacks of them on Ebay..

Click to expand...

Cool, shall have a look. Shall need one in the next few months me thinks

Text from a message posted in the doblo forum, same problem very easy remedy.


BF finally did it. As mentioned elsewhere buried in these forums, If you leave the seatbelt unplugged when folding the seats forward, it tightens the seatbelts. The problem here is that a (not well known) safety feature is that the seatbelt ratchet will not loosen while the seats are folded, so like quicksand, the more you tighten to try and get some purchase, the tighter it gets. When you finally get the seats back upright, the seatbelt is so tight it's impossible to get them to loosen.

The solution is if you follow the seatbelt down under the seat, you will find it bolted underneath to the chassis, so unscrew the bolt and feed the loose end back up through the seat (while it's upright so it allows you to loosen the belt). Then clip the belt, feed the loose end back under the seat and attach back with the bolt - Job done.

The bolt is easily accessible, and will take 5 minutes to remedy.

sootywillow said:

Text from a message posted in the doblo forum, same problem very easy remedy.


BF finally did it. As mentioned elsewhere buried in these forums, If you leave the seatbelt unplugged when folding the seats forward, it tightens the seatbelts. The problem here is that a (not well known) safety feature is that the seatbelt ratchet will not loosen while the seats are folded, so like quicksand, the more you tighten to try and get some purchase, the tighter it gets. When you finally get the seats back upright, the seatbelt is so tight it's impossible to get them to loosen.

The solution is if you follow the seatbelt down under the seat, you will find it bolted underneath to the chassis, so unscrew the bolt and feed the loose end back up through the seat (while it's upright so it allows you to loosen the belt). Then clip the belt, feed the loose end back under the seat and attach back with the bolt - Job done.

The bolt is easily accessible, and will take 5 minutes to remedy.

Click to expand...

Good to know if it ever happens again

Hi folks

I have exactly the same problem with my 53 reg Stilo JTD estate.
I have noticed from the last reply in this thread, that the answer is to remove the bolt where the belt is attached under the seat. This bolt doesn't look like a normal bolt, but looks like a large torx head. Am I looking at the right bolt? If so, does anybody know the right size and type of tool I need to remove it?

Before you do that, look at the drawings I uploaded in post 4, see how the safety device works?
Is the seat back fully rearwards and locked in place?

It's only when the seat back is locked in the upright position that the cable release allows the centre belt to be released and used. You will see the colour flag mark at the front of the catch change when it's properly locked.


If you're unable to return the seat back to the upright position because the tightened seat belt is now preventing you, then you can find a bolt or screwdriver of the same diameter as the locking catch rod and push it into the lock catch, it'll then think it's in the safe position and release the inertia belt.

evening all,

Mot is due next week and I have exactly the same problem with my 03 reg Stilo

i want to loosen the 2 large torx/star head bolts under the seats as suggested in one of the previous post which solved there issue, does anybody know the right size and type of tool I need to remove it? where can i pick one up or any other suggestion?

thanks

Not really any help to you currently, but for future reference, I always belt the middle belt in before dropping the rear seat, and release it on the way up, helps prevent this issue from re-occouring.

ah-ha ill try this tomorrow,one of a few times doing a search actually turned up with a result