Hi everyone.

I have got a jan 2015 skoda fabia 1.2se, and i have just got in it after finishing work, and i cant put my seat belt on! it only pulls out so far then locks! 

Car is under warranty, but when i checked the warranty conditions, it doesn't cover seats belts and tensioners!

 

Any idea what could be causing it? car has only done 35k

just gone out to it, and it's working fine now! its quite a warm day, would direct sunlight affect the pre tensioner?

The one thing you need to look at , take a good look down inside at the red clip part, bet you'll find a little peace of something has got caught inside , you'll need something to hook it out . 

I think that the OP is talking about not being able to initially pull out enough of the retracted section that is hidden behind trim and the B pillar.  If the car is not level or if it is getting pulled out too quickly it can sometimes lock up it seems, never happened to me though.

I had this occur on my son's 2012 Fabia. It got really bad and the belt kept locking as it was pulled out. If you did it really gentle it was just about possible to use it.

A new belt was just over £100, so I took the belt out and sprayed silicone spray into a little gap in the casing with the spray straw. Sprayed it at various angles as I pulled the belt out and in.

Put it back and it's been perfect for a few months now.

I'm happy with my 15 minute fix. If it lasts good, if not I'll consider replacement.

 

On 20/04/2019 at 16:34, aubrey said:

I had this occur on my son's 2012 Fabia. It got really bad and the belt kept locking as it was pulled out. If you did it really gentle it was just about possible to use it.

A new belt was just over £100, so I took the belt out and sprayed silicone spray into a little gap in the casing with the spray straw. Sprayed it at various angles as I pulled the belt out and in.

Put it back and it's been perfect for a few months now.

I'm happy with my 15 minute fix. If it lasts good, if not I'll consider replacement.

 

Sorry for the thread bump but thought I should reply to this rather than post a new thread as it has been dicusessed.

 

@aubrey, my partner is having the same issue with her MK2 Fabia, how did you fix hold up? Equally, do you mind highlighting or providing slightly more detail on where to spray? Is it where the cog/ratchet type mechanism is?

It has not been any problem since that fix. Still working fine and the car has been in constant use.   The front seat belt mechanism sits at the bottom of the B Pillar, the pillar between the front and rear doors. Basically where the belt goes in behind your shoulder and then down behind the trim to the mechanism at the bottom by the floor.  To get to the mechanism is not hard, if I remember right you undo the belt guide behind your shoulder, unclip open the plastic clam cover and a spline bit and the plastic comes away quite simply with bit of gentle levering with a plastic trim tool. I think I may of had to unclip or unscrew some door bottom trim pieces but I can't remember fully. All I can say is it was pretty obvious when doing it.

Once the mechanism is seen then it can be unbolted and the electrical plug can be removed, that is the crash pre-tensioner. You can see the spline bolt holding it in at the bottom of the 1st photo. With the mechanism in my hand like the 2nd photo above then there are a few little holes in the white casing. As said earlier I pulled the belt out fully and sprayed silicone lubricant with the straw on the can through those holes. I also put some on the exposed gears the other side. While spraying I moved the belt in and out. Also manoeuvring the whole unit around to get the lubricant around the inside gears. Repeating at a few angles and different holes until I was happy.

As said when all put back together it has been fine over a year.  Make sure you have a set of spline bits, xzn bits, as you need them.

Aubrey! I wish I'd read your post several years ago. 

Our front seat belts started jamming. The passenger side was always worse and it was much worse in hot weather. We ended up forking out to have them both replaced but the passenger's, though better, still plays up 😠

 

Today we put a deposit down on a Fabia. Fingers crossed that it won't have the same problem, but at least I'll know what to do.

Had this occur yesterday on our Roomster. Super-hot day.

Managed to gradually tease it out after it originally wouldn't come more than about 6 or 7 cm. Several workmates stepped up to try, and all managed exactly the same.

Aircon on to bring temp down, felt very naked driving with the belt not on, but after about 3 miles it started to gradually sneak out a bit further with each micro-gentle pull.

Couldn't see any obvious problem when trim was removed.

Seems like a good time to refresh my stock of spray lubricants.

Cheers to Alex D for sharing this link with me, and @aubrey for giving a possible cheap fix.

24 minutes ago, Breezy_Pete said:

Had this occur yesterday on our Roomster. Super-hot day.

Managed to gradually tease it out after it originally wouldn't come more than about 6 or 7 cm. Several workmates stepped up to try, and all managed exactly the same.

Aircon on to bring temp down, felt very naked driving with the belt not on, but after about 3 miles it started to gradually sneak out a bit further with each micro-gentle pull.

Couldn't see any obvious problem when trim was removed.

Seems like a good time to refresh my stock of spray lubricants.

Cheers to Alex D for sharing this link with me, and @aubrey for giving a possible cheap fix.

Same here on the fabia. I don't believe lubricant will help I think its the close tolerance in the locking mechanism being reduced by thermal expansion.

I managed to very slowly tease the belt out.

Thanks, was thinking along similar lines, but there are much hotter places than here, so it must be more than just that.

Nothing much to lose by giving lube a go. New belt is north of £200; most ebay 2nd hand ones are in the £50-100 range and obviously a gamble.

I did give this a go, and it did seem to solve the problem.

Weirdly, pretty much simultaneously, the latch that receives and detects the belt buckle bit started not detecting occasionally, causing warning lights and bonging noises.

A squirt of air from one of those airduster aerosols seemed to sort that, presumably displacing some debris that was interfering with microswitch operation.

Cheers again @aubrey . 🙂