Rear seat belt locked up.

SUBARU
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TIMA
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Is there a release button or some trick to release the seat belt? My '98 Subaru Forrester's rear passenger-side seat belt has locked up in the retracted position and there is not enough slack to make it release. If you cant get it to move at all its going to be tough without some dissasembly.

The easiest thing to try is to remove the lower portion of the rear seat it is actually easy. Then you can unbolt the side of the seat belt that has the release button. This will give you some slack and you may be able to get the belt mechanism to move after that. Its a lot easier then removing the panels and taking out the shoulder harness.
Mar 19, 2007 at 2:09 PM
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SCUBARU
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When this happens you need to replace the seat belt unit itself because even if you get it undone it will probably do it again.

Here are some diagrams of what you need to do to replace the belt.

Please let us know what you find. We are interested to see what it is.

Cheers
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Mar 20, 2007 at 10:15 AM
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POCONOSDEWEY
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I have a 98 Forester that also had the pass side rear seatbelt "locked into the recessed position."
As I recall they fixed it under a recall that I never received. Check into it.

Checked my records:
I had this fixed my my dealership on 12 Oct 04. They did not charge me. I don't know if it was covered under the warranty or a recall. I'm pretty sure it was under the warranty though.
Mar 20, 2007 at 1:00 PM
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ESUBARU16
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This happened to me in my 2015 Subaru Forester, and I'm struggling to fix it. Nothing in the owner's manual, etc about this. Any advice would be extremely welcome!!!
To "Scubaru" who posted a reply above: what do you mean by "remove the lower portion of the rear seat"? How does one do this?
Thank you!!
Apr 8, 2016 at 7:35 PM