Centre rear seat belt - Tourer

dauphin · 19th July 2018, 14:03

Got a nice green leather interior for my tourer, but on going to fit the rear seat I’ve found that the inertia reel for the centre belt has been removed from the backrest! According to the Haynes manual, this assembly can’t be worked on without stripping off the seat cover - and advice I’ve found here on the forum seems to confirm that

I can live without a centre belt as it’s unlikely I’ll ever carry 3 rear seat passengers, but I’m not sure if it will be required come MOT time. I believe it used to be the case that it was one of those situations where the car would fail if the centre belt was present but defective, but would pass if it was missing altogether. But maybe that has changed with the new MOT regulations...
If it is required for the MOT, the best workaround I’ve come up with is to fit a non-matching backrest to get the car through the test, and then put the leather one back afterwards.

Unfortunately, although I’ve still got the old backrest, I blithely removed the plastic cover in order to scavenge the seatbelt from it before I found out about the complications this involves, and now it doesn’t want to unreel despite replacing the plastic cover, so I think I may have messed that one up! In any case, I shall probably have to cut the centre seatbelt off of that seat, because it shares its bottom mounting bracket with the fixed part of the n/s belt, so currently the o/s belt is the only usable one!

I may have therefore have to think in terms of getting a third backrest with working centre belt that I can use for MOT purposes - or borrow the one from my other tourer, but that doubles the work involved each time.

All in all, it seems like a bit of a nightmare!

Arctic · 20th July 2018, 09:23

Hi Andrew.
I am under the same impression as you, if no rear seat belt is present then it does not effect the MOT, as for the seat belt part that it attaches to in the seat base you can just took it away under the seat for now, doing this allows only the one seat belt locking part showing.

Other members whom may well know more could well post different ?

rm197 · 20th July 2018, 13:11

I found with mine that the centre seatbelt will only reel in/out when the seat back was clipped in correctly. When the seat is folded down the belt will not reel.

If your seat is out of the car, use a screwdriver to simulate the seat back clipping in and it should work

dauphin · 20th July 2018, 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arctic

Hi Andrew.
I am under the same impression as you, if no rear seat belt is present then it does not effect the MOT, as for the seat belt part that it attaches to in the seat base you can just took it away under the seat for now, doing this allows only the one seat belt locking part showing.

Other members whom may well know more could well post different ?

Thanks to you both for your responses.

Arctic, unless I’m misunderstanding you, the redundant part of the belt cannot be tucked away because it’s the bottom mounting of the inertia reel section that shares the bracket with the fixed strap for the near side belt.

However, there is good news because I raised the issue on an MOT forum and this is the reply I received:

“Still a pass. For 3 rear seats you need at least one 3 point inertia reel belt on an outboard seat and a permutation of different types of belt on one of the remaining seats. You will be fine with the centre belt missing & inertia reel belts on the other two.”

I think that’s going to be the best solution for me. I’ll just cut off the bottom attachment of the centre inertia reel of my old seat from the shared mounting, leaving me with just the fixed strap for the n/s belt.

RoverP480 · 21st July 2018, 09:52

Remember to tell your insurers that you have modified the vehicle!

19th July 2018, 14:03	#1
dauphin Regular poster Rover 75 Tourer Join Date: Mar 2018 Location: Helensburgh Posts: 45 Thanks: 6 Thanked 11 Times in 8 Posts	Centre rear seat belt - Tourer Got a nice green leather interior for my tourer, but on going to fit the rear seat I’ve found that the inertia reel for the centre belt has been removed from the backrest! According to the Haynes manual, this assembly can’t be worked on without stripping off the seat cover - and advice I’ve found here on the forum seems to confirm that I can live without a centre belt as it’s unlikely I’ll ever carry 3 rear seat passengers, but I’m not sure if it will be required come MOT time. I believe it used to be the case that it was one of those situations where the car would fail if the centre belt was present but defective, but would pass if it was missing altogether. But maybe that has changed with the new MOT regulations... If it is required for the MOT, the best workaround I’ve come up with is to fit a non-matching backrest to get the car through the test, and then put the leather one back afterwards. Unfortunately, although I’ve still got the old backrest, I blithely removed the plastic cover in order to scavenge the seatbelt from it before I found out about the complications this involves, and now it doesn’t want to unreel despite replacing the plastic cover, so I think I may have messed that one up! In any case, I shall probably have to cut the centre seatbelt off of that seat, because it shares its bottom mounting bracket with the fixed part of the n/s belt, so currently the o/s belt is the only usable one! I may have therefore have to think in terms of getting a third backrest with working centre belt that I can use for MOT purposes - or borrow the one from my other tourer, but that doubles the work involved each time. All in all, it seems like a bit of a nightmare!

20th July 2018, 09:23	#2
Arctic Give to Learn Freelander 2 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: West Midlands Posts: 18,717 Thanks: 1,155 Thanked 6,407 Times in 3,874 Posts	Hi Andrew. I am under the same impression as you, if no rear seat belt is present then it does not effect the MOT, as for the seat belt part that it attaches to in the seat base you can just took it away under the seat for now, doing this allows only the one seat belt locking part showing. Other members whom may well know more could well post different ? __________________ Arctic Givology Learn to Give Everything is Achievable ad altiora tendo. Check out our Nano meet dates http://www.midlandsnanomeets.co.uk/ http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/index.php?thepage=howto " You do the work , we supply the expertise "

20th July 2018, 13:11	#3
rm197 Regular poster MG ZT-T+ Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Nuneaton Posts: 39 Thanks: 1 Thanked 5 Times in 4 Posts	I found with mine that the centre seatbelt will only reel in/out when the seat back was clipped in correctly. When the seat is folded down the belt will not reel. If your seat is out of the car, use a screwdriver to simulate the seat back clipping in and it should work

21st July 2018, 09:52	#5
RoverP480 Gets stuck in None at the moment Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Hereford Posts: 501 Thanks: 1 Thanked 165 Times in 146 Posts	Remember to tell your insurers that you have modified the vehicle!