Seat belt issues

[barnholio]

My passenger seat belt (96 328is) doesn't retract. Looking at the Bently, it looks like a full day project to get to the mechanism. Remove the back seat, possibly the front seat....who has that kind of time? Was wondering if anyone knew of any possible quick fixes?

[Itsa328]

It's not a full day project at all. The side panel you need to get to just clips in. The passenger seat may have to come out but that is 4 fours and a couple electrical connectors. You can have your hands on the seat belt reel in 15 minutes. Sometimes the black plastic belt guide tab breaks off and trips up the belt. You get just toss it and see how it works, or take the extra ten minutes and unbolt it from the car.

Either way if it takes you more than 2 hours start to finish, you did something wrong.

[328 Power 04]

^^^^ +1 ... seats go out in 15mins or less

[heifetz17]

Remove the B pillar and the side panel and the mechanism is right there. You don't have to remove the seat. Remove the B pillar only if you're actually going to remove the seatbelt. To just get to the mechanims, just remove the side panel.

[Itsa328]

Why on earth would you have to remove the back seat?
The only time the back seat should come out would be to change the fuel pump.

[barnholio]

Thanks,

I will try to tackle it this weekend. Bently was saying remove the back seat to get the side panel off, I got confused between the Refer to this section, in which I had to refer to another section........Great book though!