2003 VUE Rear Seat Belt Stuck ... Back Seat Won't Fold Up

[burnsej]

I have an 03 Saturn Vue, I folded the rear seat down as normal yesterday to haul some cargo. When I went to fold it up, the middle seat belt is stuck and will not allow for the seat to fold into place. Anyonce know a good way to approach this problem? Is there an easy way to unbolt the seatbelt to at least fold the seat up to work with it? (it old folds about 6" up).

Also, maybe related? It seems like the rear seat cover has become detached from the frame of the seat. I can reach up it and feel the foam of the seat. Is this normal?

Thanks!

[ems1]

The same thing happened on my '03 Vue. I spend about 2 hours working on it in my driveway. I came to the conclusion, the only way to work around it was to cut the belt to release it. Since it was still under warrantee. I took it back to the dealer. The first thing they did was cut the belt so they could fold the seat up to work on it. Of course, they had to replace the belt.

I figured if I could unbolt the belt, I could work on the retractor to release it. The problem is that you can't get to the seat belt bolt with the seat folded.

Once the belt was jammed, there was no way I could find to release it with the seat in the folded down position.

By the way, it is a common problem, if you fold the seats down.

[the_webers_inc]

I just purchased a 2003 VUE. The back seat upholstery was a bit dirty, so I removed the seat to remove the upholstery to clean it. I want to share a few observations from my experience:

If you pull up the panel in the back over the spare tire closest to the seat, right between where the seats come together, the latch mechanism resides. You will see the cable running down from the bottom of the seat to a little stud. If you push down on the seat back a bit, and pull up on the stud the seat should come free.

I also noticed in disassembling the seats that the seat-belt locks when the seat is not upright. I see that you say that the seat belt is stuck. What is it caught on? or are one of your side seat belts stuck on the seat hinge assembly?

I don't know if this helps any, but I wanted to throw it out there.

T. J.

Edit: -- Ok, I thought about it a bit more, and I think that I understand the problem now. When the seat is folded down and the seat belt locks it is too short to allow the seat to be folded up. The only way that I know of to release it is to unbolt the seat belt bracket at its base. Unfortunately, that mean removing the seat. 5 bolt at the back, 2 in the front, and then the bolt holding the seat belt bracket. once you unbolt the seat belt bracket, you will be able to fold the seat back up and the seat belt should release.

[burnsej]

Thanks for the tips / help! Yesterday I took the backseat out, and I was able to unhook the seatbelt from below to allow the seat to fold up. Once the seat was up I could easily fiddle with the seat belt, which came free in about 5 min. I was also able to tighten the seat cover while the seat was out. The whole process took less than one hour.

Now I am looking for some way to keep the middle seatbelt from retracting in any further then the upright - seat height, in order to avoid this problem again. I will most likely get one of the plastic clips designed to keep a setbelt from retracting too far in use with a child seat.

[Beeleonf]

How did you remove the outer two bolts? On my view they are in tight with a styrofoam block. Not sure how to get a wrench around it and it's not clear how to remove the foam block....I know years later on this post not sure if anyone has a recollection how they fixed this.

[raifordjh@gmail]

I have a very easy solution to this problem. Simply park on a very steep hill.... this will trigger the gravity triggered seatbelt mechanism and allow the seat to unfold. But the credit is not mine it's the wizard's. As for who that is well that's classified.

[kevin_h]

Hi - The back seat in my 2007 Vue is stuck in the down position. Can you please provide some more detail on how I can release it?
Thanks,
-Kevin