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Rear seatbelt buckles issues

What do you think of the buckles in the pictures (the white seat ones)

  • They look normal

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    6
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Hi Everyone!
I have a newish M3, collected early March 2020.
I finally have an appointment on the 30th (after it being moved 3 times due to the virus..) to address all issues reported on delivery...

I have just now noticed (as I don’t usually have anyone sitting in the back) that the two buckles that sit in the slot are sooooo far inside and at an angle that is almost impossible to do the seat belts!!!

I tried to pull them out but they just don’t come up at all! I have released the rear seat to see if that would allow me more movement to pull the buckles out, and it did help by a few millimetres? But they are still so far back and at an angle that is almost impossible like I said to buckle them. It seems as if the “cord” that holds the buckles in is too short..
I have struggled for about 5 minutes to buckle each seat belt!!! My fingertips are soo bloody sore you can’t even believe it!
and for the moment I’ll leave them buckled as I’ll have guests and I don’t want the car to. set the warning off for the whole journey!!


Does anyone else have this problem? Should I just make the service centre aware and hope for the best even though I haven’t reported it earlier?

I have attached some pictures, do yours look like this or are mine actually abnormally pushed too far in? (Note because they are buckled in the pic they are at a better angle, but they lower themselves if i unbuckle!)
The other pic is something online..

p.s. there are seat covers.. (no, those don’t affect the buckles, they were like this before, I just never tried to buckle them!)
3C807C4D-4173-429F-BBBA-7D7C790D1AB3.jpeg
1C3E2755-35A9-4089-BF27-B7CBA1647A00.jpeg
CF0484A2-B5E8-4B3E-ACE1-38EAB515B488.jpeg
3C807C4D-4173-429F-BBBA-7D7C790D1AB3.jpeg
 
You should try to lift the back eat or to remove it, I imagine that the belt must be a little bit twisted.

However, if you look for seat-belt extenders you will find several threads. Rear Windows 3" Rigid Seatbelt Extenders

I added a right and left extender because the right rear passengers were often using the middle buckle instead of the right buckle.
So there was a warning light on the front display indicating that the right rear passenger was not wearing a seat belt

Also some people installing baby seats boosters found the buckles to be often too short.
2173467_source_1585235650.jpg
 
You should try to lift the back eat or to remove it, I imagine that the belt must be a little bit twisted.

However, if you look for seat-belt extenders you will find several threads. Rear Windows 3" Rigid Seatbelt Extenders

...

Just a minor pedantic note, the link goes to the Model Y extenders. For the rear seat it doesn't matter they're identical. For the front it kinda matters. The front seatbelt on Y now uses the same buckle and tongue as the rear. The "Tesla specific" (not really, but apparently less common) buckles are about $10 more per buckle. The Model 3 front seat belts can use a more inexpensive buckle so the front seat extenders for it are cheaper. The downside is they only work in the front. On the hand the Model Y extenders are universal to best that I can test and measure. I did break out the calipers for this. They will fit front and back on the Model 3 and Y. Obviously don't know about 3rd row since I don't have one.
 
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You should try to lift the back eat or to remove it, I imagine that the belt must be a little bit twisted.

However, if you look for seat-belt extenders you will find several threads. Rear Windows 3" Rigid Seatbelt Extenders

I added a right and left extender because the right rear passengers were often using the middle buckle instead of the right buckle.
So there was a warning light on the front display indicating that the right rear passenger was not wearing a seat belt

Also some people installing baby seats boosters found the buckles to be often too short.
2173467_source_1585235650.jpg


I did try to lift the rear seat... and that’s why I managed to actually buckle up the seat belt! ;)
I had the seat removed previously ( to put the white seat cover on...) but there’s no way of these seatbelts being any better.. it seems the cord holding them is too short by an inch or two... :confused:

I’m not fully comfortable on the extenders as I feel like you shouldn’t have to use them on a car like this!
plus they have “cover my a**” warnings and I don’t want to fall into a category when in an event of an accident insurance starts playing the blame game!
My old fiat 500 had perfect buckles! And you can buy 3 of them with the price of a Tesla!!! :mad:
 
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