Rear Seat Belts Locking

[HankLloydRight]

The Rockville SC replaced my seat belts the other day. They actually contacted me before I was able to contact them. As usual the service was excellent! A big kudos to Judith and the other Tesla staff.

The new seat belts are much better and my passengers have had no problems.

My car is in for annual service, and thanks for the reminder.. I called them up this morning to ask them to change them out...

They told me that's just how the seat beats works, and not to pull them out too far.

.. and that's what they told me.. except *to* pull them out all the way before latching. Either way, they claim it locks in place and there's absolutely nothing they can do or swap out. They were not at all familiar with the rear seat belt problem.

 

[liuping]

They told me that's just how the seat beats works, and not to pull them out too far.

Since I never sit in the back, it does not effect me much, and the kids don't have a problem with it, but several adults who have sat in the back have complained about it.

Seems like a bad design, but not big enough of a deal to make a stink to get it fixed.

Shortly after posting this. I got call from the Lee at the SD Service center saying they might have a fix and to contact them if is was still a problem. I love that Tesla service monitors TMC and is proactive about reaching out to get problems fixed.

Before calling them back, I sat in the back and tried several times to repo the issue that my parents and friends had complained about in the past. I simply could not do it without pulling out a truly excessive amount of seat belt before pluggin in. I literally had to pull it all the way out with one hand, then pull extra out with the other before the locking engaged. It's possible they were used to front seat belts and pull out extra as part of their seatbelt bucking routine. I'm sure for example my dad has not ridden in the back for years.

Since back seats have to enable the locking mechanism at some point so car seats can be locked down in place, I think this is correct as is. Maybe it was sticking earlier in the past and has loosened up, or maybe they made some adjustments at the service center at some point, but I think it's fine as it is now. If anyone mentions the locking, I will be able to explain it in the future.

 

[swengl]

My biggest problem with the back seats is when I try to use child car seats (or boosters) in the back. The LATCH anchors on mine are really buried in the seat, they are much harder to get to than they should be. When one of my kids use a booster, I have to basically slide the booster seat towards the nearest door to make the regular belt latch available to use. Releasing the seat belt from the latch is something I always have to do, my child isn't able to reach and isn't strong enough to push in the button to release the belt. I have to admit: this is my biggest gripe about the Model S and in the grand scheme of things, it's not so bad.

 

[Gizmotoy]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but has anyone had any luck getting this resolved recently? My car's been in for this 3 or 4 times now (you can see I posted about the issue all the way back on the first page of this thread in May 2014), and the response is always a PC version of "don't put large people in the back." It happens to my wife, too, sometimes and she's pretty small. A few weeks ago I had to pull over to the side of Route 1 to extract a passenger. It's bad, and Tesla isn't too keen on taking any action.

Any ideas?

 

[swengl]

My biggest problem with the back seats is when I try to use child car seats (or boosters) in the back. The LATCH anchors on mine are really buried in the seat, they are much harder to get to than they should be. When one of my kids use a booster, I have to basically slide the booster seat towards the nearest door to make the regular belt latch available to use. Releasing the seat belt from the latch is something I always have to do, my child isn't able to reach and isn't strong enough to push in the button to release the belt. I have to admit: this is my biggest gripe about the Model S and in the grand scheme of things, it's not so bad.

Turns out, booster seats are much easier to deal with. My youngest is still in a booster, but can easily latch herself in now. <Whew>

 

[Ken7]

I experienced a different back seat issue while friends were riding in the back of my 2 week old S last night. Although they were both buckled, I got a periodic warning on the dash cluster that one of them wasn’t buckled. I wasn’t even aware there was that kind of warning for back seat occupants. I’m not sure what caused this. Has anyone seen this kind of issue?