All cars sold in the US after Sep 1 1989 were required to have a passive
restraint system. If your car did not come with air bags, it must have
had automatic seat belts when it was new. Are you in the US? Are you
the first owner of the car?

I am thinking that perhaps a previous owner got rid of the annoying
automatic seat belts and put in a pair of manual ones, leaving behind
various vestiges in the form of relays and switches.

Elan7eOwner wrote:
>
> Nope plain car simple manual seatbelts that one puts on. No automatics of
> any kind.
>
> Also I realized that the seatbelts may use a different (pendulum type)
> locking mechanism, which only locks when the car decelerates. I will be
> testing that next, braking in parking lot.
> I jumped because I saw that the rear belts quickly lock when pulled. But
> maybe they use a different mechanism for the front.(inertia type)
>
> "Randolph" <trash@junkmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4036807B.ECB58593@junkmail.com...
> > Fascinating. Does you car have (or has it ever had) the motorized,
> > automatic seat belts that car makers put in when they were too cheap to
> > put in air bags?
> >
> > > The worst part is that I noticed, the seatbelts dont even lock
> > > when pulled quickly. Thats a safety hazard and I should probably sue
> them
> > > for incorrect installation of such an important safety feature.
> >
> > You'd probably have a good case, but it may be more effective to just
> > make them fix what they did wrong. With the liability involved, they'll
> > probably be quite motivated to get this right.