It would be a rare trip when I don't have some form of false alarm.

It can be the Front Assist warning me with a noise and a big red crash graphic that I am about to crash into something, except I am not.

It can be the Lane Assist warning me with a smaller yellow graphic and a series of "bong" noises that I must be falling asleep because I seem to have strayed from my lane for a long period, except I haven't and I can actually see my lane lines in the side mirrors.

It can be the car, under control of the Adaptive Cruise Control, slowing down for no reason when passing a car parked in the kerbside lane.

All of these can happen in good weather, daylight, the car and its sensors are clean. In 99% of similar circumstances nothing happens then out of the blue you get one of these.

 

Today it was a very sudden tightening of both driver and passenger seatbelts and some warning message that, like each of those mentioned above, I have not the leisure of reading at the moment all of this is taking place.

There was no car immediately in front of me but, from what I can work out, this was due to a car that had been following me accelerating from a position in my lane behind me to a position in the left-hand lane beside me. I suppose the initial part of that manoeuvre might have looked to my car like he was accelerating directly into my car although nothing he was doing was causing me any concern.

 

I have read that a seatbelt pre-tensioner is a one-time device and it needs to be replaced after use. However there is no warning rom the car that I need to do that, which is what would expect with all of the other tests that the car does.

So is this tensioning, which was VERY firm and sudden, something less than the explosive pre-tensioning that immediately precedes the deployment of an airbag?

Has anyone else had a similar occurrence?

Edited 24 October, 20214 yr by DaveFromSydney

3 hours ago, DaveFromSydney said:

I have read that a seatbelt pre-tensioner is a one-time device and it needs to be replaced after use.

That is correct; the pretensioners are one shot pyrotechnics.

If it were the explosive pre-tensioning you would know all about it, you would be deafenened and the car would stink of explosive residue and burnt plastic, I am almost 100% certain that the airbag would have deployed as well, it also renders the seatbelt retractor mechanism unusable.

 

If your seatbelt is still operating in the normal manner and there is no permanent airbag warning light on the dashboard then my assumption is that there is some kind of motorised retractor fitted also which was deployed by the circumstances you describe, yet more expensive and unreliable BS added to new vehicles.

 

Please let us know if the seatbelts are working normally and the dash is free from warning lights.

Were you pulling positiveG when it deployed?

 

Dont drive wearing a G-suit

Edited 24 October, 20214 yr by J.R.

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

If it were the explosive pre-tensioning you would know all about it, you would be deafenened and the car would stink of explosive residue and burnt plastic, I am almost 100% certain that the airbag would have deployed as well, it also renders the seatbelt retractor mechanism unusable.

 

If your seatbelt is still operating in the normal manner and there is no permanent airbag warning light on the dashboard then my assumption is that there is some kind of motorised retractor fitted also which was deployed by the circumstances you describe, yet more expensive and unreliable BS added to new vehicles.

 

Please let us know if the seatbelts are working normally and the dash is free from warning lights.

That is what I suspected. It was not the big explosive deployment. There was no loud noise. There are no lasting warnings on the dashboard. The belts appear to work as before.

The belts just pulled in several inches in a fraction of a second, pulling us back into the seats.

It upset my wife since she has a sensitive sternum from having her ribcage cracked open for a heart bypass many years ago.

At the time we were just coasting along at 60 km/h coming up to some cars at an intersection so preparing to brake.

This was all triggered by the guy in the car behind getting impatient to get into the lane beside us as soon as it became free.

 

 

Skoda's rotten software is going to end up killing someone.