Seatbelt Chime Fix

Got tired of reading no solution/dealership/wear your seatbelt/techstream comments so I just went and figured out a DIY solution myself. Truck is a 2014 V6 manual TRD with access cab.

*Disclaimer* I wear my seatbelt on public roads and bumpy offroading. I did this because I'm tired of my truck thinking my backpack is marauding as a small child. It's an easy fix, reversable, requires no wires being cut, and takes about five minutes. *Small plastic pieces are easily breakable and you should be careful as to keep them intact if you attempt this*

Without further ado:

Remove the nut holding the seatbelt receptacle with a #14 crescent wrench. Push the seat all the way back for easier positioning on the nut from the backseat. Pull the buckle up a bit to get to the piece circled below. Don't snatch it, those wires are still being held under the seat and we need them intact. Take a small flathead and pop out the black plastic piece at the bottom of the gray recepticle (just a little bit, not all the way. This provides tension for the next part).



Rotate to the other side and you'll see a small hole with a plastic tab inside. Depress the tab at the lowest point/catch point. This took a fair amount of force but the whole piece should slide right out after it's released.



Remove the assembly you just freed. The spring circled is what resets the contact point when the seatbelt is removed. We're gonna remove it and set the white plastic piece so the contact points always touch.



There's four small tabs at the top of this white piece. They attach to a little guide piece. Carefully push the tabs to the sides with a small flathead to remove the large white piece from the guide piece.



Now just pull the spring off. Store it somewhere safe if you feel you might restore these to factory for resale purposes.



Replace the large white piece by seating it back into the guide piece. Should snap right in without much fuss. Make sure you seat it all the way down so the contacts...well so they contact. Circled both parts that should touch.



Slide the whole assembly back into the recepticle. This part took a bit of finagling. You have to squeeze the outsides of the white plastic piece while inserting it. I, once again, used my small flathead. At this point you should test the buckle release button and seatbelt buckle by inserting it then removing it. They should feel the same way they did before. If there's extra tension, you didn't put the little assembly in correctly. Pull the assembly out and put it back in. Test again.

Lastly put the recepticle back on the seat bolt and put the nut back on. The whole piece should rotate without much pressure. If it doesn't then it isn't seated right on the bolt and the nut is therefore not tightened as far as it should go. Reset, do it right. Failure to properly reinstall this piece could cause malfunction in your safety equipment in the incident of a crash and uhhh "result in severe injury or death". If you question what it was supposed to feel like, just grab the one you aren't working on and feel it. Simple as.

 

Good to know. The internals of my seatbelt buckle are a little different it seems like from what I remember. Need to check again but I already resorted to removing the chime/light by modifying the wiring when I did the bench to bucket mod. This would have been a lot easier.

 

You do realize you can turn the seatbelt chime off via a scan tool or a button sequence instead of modifying the buckle....

 

That works to turn off the chime but the light still stays on/flashes in the dash which also bugs me.

Some people get those seat belt extenders and call it a day but I don't personally care for those either.

 

My $100 scan tool doesn't have the option, "button sequence" is not an option for this year.

 

The light doesn't bother me, I turned the chime off because my driveway is 1/2 mile of dirt road and I spend alot of time off highway and I didn't like the beeper griping. I wear my seatbelt all other times.

Ah I was thinking the button sequence worked on all 2nd gens, I turned mine off with my scan tool.

 

Just curious, does setting this option (Seat belt beeper off) via scan-tool persist even through battery disconnections?

 

Yes, I turned mine off not too long after I got the truck and it has never turned itself back on.

 

Glad you are able to share the info. Thanks

 

Do you have said button sequence? I did a quick search and couldn't find anything. I'm also away from my truck computer at the moment or I'd just turn off the chime in Techstream

 

Believe it doesn’t work on 2012-2015. YRMV.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/38842-disable-seatbelt-warning-chime.html

 

My 30ish dollar Mini VCI with Techstream has the option. LOL

 

This is a whole lot of effort to avoid Techstream.

 

10min vs sifting through to find the right one cable, buying a cable that only does a handful of things on 2nd gens, known software issues, costs $40 (?), waiting for shipping, and having to figure out how the program works. You're right, I really took the hard way out.

 

Apologies if we came off as rude, I'm just not a fan of modifying stuff on modern vehicles especially when it has to do with safety systems and something like this is a 2 minute fix for someone with the appropriate scan tool (doesn’t necessarily have to be Techstream) but hey if it works for you and your comfortable with it go for it.

 

My dealer's service department did it in about 3 minutes, cost me nothing, and no inconvenience.

So yeah, you did...

 

Some people figure it out their own way to a solution. Some people go to the dealer and say fix it. Different strokes, different folks. No shame either way.

Also, not all dealers are going to change something SRS related in techstream for you.

 

It's all good, these threads tend to carry...tension lol. To me the only difference in doing work myself or having a mechanic do it is if I'm paying in time or money.

 

Trust me, what you did was (IMHO) the better option. Of course it is a little more work but at least it is still reversible and you don't see the red seatbelt light on the dash.