seatbelt is possesed, do I need a priest?

[budbaer]

When I purchased my 92 LS-L, the seatbelts seemed to be non-functional. I took out the backseat and used the handcrank to move the seatbelt to the rear postion thinking I could just use the shoulder strap manually for now. When I parked the car and opened the door, the seatbelt automaticly returned to the forward position. Has anyone else experienced this problem? I originally thought that the seatbelt motor had gone bad but now I know that isn't the case. It would be great if anyone has any info or advice for me. Everyone has been really nice here and I have found lot's of helpful info, so I just want to thank the webmasters and everyone for such a great site.

[curly2k3]

mine acted up like this last summer as well, this worked for me.

retract the seatbelt all the way back
disconnect the battery for a while
reconnect the battery with the door OPEN
should slide forward
open and close it a few times
also open and close it with the key on/off... worked for me, hope it does for you

[DarknessofDeath]

i worked on something that required to remove the side back panels before and forgot to plug it back in and the seatbelt didn't work...probably a bad connection or something..give it a few days and see what happens...but if you really need. i always keep holy water if you need it

[ensteele]

I have heard that the contact also become dirty. You might check those on the door. If the ignition cylinder is worn, it will sometimes do that. One of mine has that problem.

[budbaer]

I think I am going to have to agree with Earl on the ingition cylinder. I am having trouble starting the car sometimes, if I don't start it right after I open the door, I have to wait 10 min. to start the car. This is also a ignition cylinder problem I think, at least all my problems are related, that's better than needing several fixes I figure. Thanks everyone, I will post what happens after I change the cylinder. Also thanks Earl, I guess when you own 5% of the worlds SVX population, you have seen about every possible problem that can come about. I don't think we can buy just one, the wife is always wanting to drive my car so I think we are going to get rid of her Maxima and get another SVX, Then I will have two cars that my Subaru mechanic scratches his head everytime I pull into the shop.

[angrydan]

Question: Does the seatbelt error light come on? I had this problem with my Pearlie. The belt would always get stuck in the forward position, and then the diagnostic lights would come on and blink. I tried every combination of manually cranking the belt to different positions with the battery connected and disconnected with no success.

If this is happening to you, it is likely the control unit (located in the trunk). In my case, in spite of what the error code was reading, it ended up being the control unit.

If you think you might need a different unit, I have the entire electronic seatbelt system that was removed from another forum member who modded his 92 with the manual seat belts from the later SVX models.

Good luck!

[budbaer]

No, I don't get a warning light, I didn't even know there was one. I think I might look to change it over to the manual belts, I like that idea, the passive restraints kind of annoy me anyway. If i do change the belts it would give me a reason to watch Ebay for SVX parts, like I do.

[curly2k3]

just do like i did and go 4 or 5 point FIA certified race harness