OK, I really hate these seat belts. Here's the story:

Sometime in June, they started acting up on me. They would stop halfway when I was trying to get out of the car. Then they would work and act up again. I decided to manually retract them and take it to the dealer as I know that if it is a bad frame rail, it is under lifetime recall.

So, I take it to the dealer and they tell me there was moisture in the door switch. He took the switch out, dried it out and everything worked again. No charge, have a nice day.

That lasted for about two days. It then started doing the exact same thing. It would stop halfway. So, I went to manually retract it, but it wouldn't get all the way to the fully retracted position. I tried and I tried and it would not go. I even stripped that cheap *** Allen wrench that comes with the car.

Finally, I call the dealer again. He says he will charge me to take it apart since he spent two hours on it last time and it wasn't even the frame rail. When I asked him what would cause it not to manually retract, he said he didn't know and I would have to bring it in. I told him to have a nice day.

So my friend and I take out the panels and look at it. We take off the coil, see if it is winding up properly, etc. Finally we just pull on it until it goes all the way down. Something in there was bent causing the thing where the belt buckles to not go all the way down.

What should I do? Does anyone have any experience with these things? It's all the way where it should be when you are driving, I just have to buckle both belts each time. I'm thinking I call Mazda (and not the dealer) and bitch and moan till they say they will take care of it. It might be the door switch, but something is definitely wrong with the rail too.

 

The auto-seat belts have a lifetime warentee. Take it to the mazda dealership. If they give you grief call mazda customer service.

You shouldn't have to fix it yourself.