sunnyside

The passenger front belt on my new 450h has a weird behavior. It keeps retracting and locking when someone uses it. You can hear it ratcheting back. It even gets tighter if you exhale. Dealer replaced it once and the problem persists. Dealer has ordered another race net , but can't explain the problem. Has anyone else had this experience?

CSSLDR

The rear right seat belt on my friends 2012 ES350 does the same thing. I experienced this - but did not tell him.
I will advise him now.

Thanks for posting

Droid13

This is normal behaviour IF the seat belt is pulled all the way out then allowed to retract. My mother-in-law does this all the time, she pulls the entire belt out with loops of it in her one hand while she struggles with putting the buckle in with her other hand. She complains about it ratcheting but what can you do when you explain it 10X and she still does the same thing.

If the belt always ratchets regardless of how much belt is pulled out and the dealer has already replaced the belt, maybe it's an issue with the pre-tensioner (when you are hard on the brakes, the seat belt is supposed to retract BEFORE you hit something) and could be electrical in nature.

sunnyside

Update--The dealer has replaced the belt again and the problem persists. We even noticed that it only seems to happen if the car is running when the belt is latched into place. The dealer plans to involve the factory rep now.

vlad_a

Must be this feature acting up:
"Automatic Locking Retractor/ Emergency Locking Retractor (ALR/ELR) seatbelts for all outboard seating positions. "

wlpncp

I hope my question is somewhat related to this thread. The seat belt cuts right across my short (5' 2") wife's neck when she is in the drivers seat. Is there any way to adjust the belt so that it goes more over her shoulder instead of her neck? Should I make her sit on a phone book maybe? :-)

BertL

Unsure what MY you have. On my 2013, there is one of those unsung "improvements" Lexus makes from time-to-time called a "seat belt comfort guide" tucked into the outside edge of the front seats that help with this situation. I use it when I load my not-too-tall mother in my passenger seat on longer rides and she does not tend to then hold the seat belt away from her neck. See page 112 of http://drivers.lexus.com/t3Portal/do.../sec_01-04.pdf for a picture and explanation.

My previous 2006 RX400h (RX gen 2) did not have these little plastic whatchmacallets. I believe the only option then is a booster seat of some sort (that may well interfere with other safety design stuff), or one of the aftermarket sheepskin "tubes" that can go over the seatbelt supposedly to help when they are too hot or otherwise uncomfortable for people ...something like this, available from many many sources and I've seen them at Walmart, Target, etc as well.

vlad_a

Did you raise the seat to its highest position?

BTW, I use the comfort guides mentioned above when there's a booster seat in the back (I didn't know there's one in the front ).

Same page 112 has the instructions on how to adjust front seat belt height. Did you adjust it to its lowest settings? My '03 IS has this feature too.

BertL

You're absolutely correct. I stand corrected -- thank you! Mixed my front and back seats. No thing-a-ma-jig on the front seats, only back that have no other seat belt height adjustment capability. Gotta use the seat/up down and seat belt height adjustment in the front as you recommend!

wlpncp

No, not yet, but thank you for this information. I hope it solves the problem.

chuckGS350

My wife experienced the same. yesterday. With the seatbelt on, she leaned forward to wipe the inside windshield while the car was running. For some reason probably leaning back and forth, the seatbelt locked and she told me she couldn't lean forward any more. She told me I had the brakes on while the car was running. But I did not. So I told her to unbuckle the belt and let it retracted.
When the belt was completely retracted, she then could extend the belt again.
I thought the front passenger seatbelt was malfunction.. When I got home, I tried to see other 3 seatbelts (driver side & two rear passenger sides) do the same. The two rear passenger seatbelts behaved the same thing, When the seatbelt locked, you can't extend the belt after letting it retracted a bit on passenger seatbelts.
But the driver seatbelt behaved different. After locked, the driver side seatbelt can be extended after a bit of retraction.

For my curiosity, I tried my 07GS350 seatbelts. They behave like my 2011 RX350 seatbelts. The driver side seatbelt acts different than the passenger seatbelts after the belt is locked. Why?

Now I may have to carry a scissor in a car in case a passenger can't unbuckle the seatbelt after it's locked and starts tightening.

chuckGS350

That's what I did to see the difference between the driver seatbelt and the passenger (front & rear) seatbealts in both my 07GS350 and 2011RX350.
After pulling the seatbelt all the way out, the passenger seatbealt can only retract until the belt is almost completely retracted. On the other hand, the driver seatbealt can stop retracting and can be pulling out again after a stop.
I can say it's a defect since both cars behave the same.