Re: Safety

[James Marriott <marriott@micron.net>]

Haudi,

Wolff wrote:
> 
> >
> > > why you should replace your seatbelts after an accident. They are
> > > designed to stretch and change your forward motion into heat in the belt
> > > material and prevent you from decellerating to rapidly.
> > Interesting...I never knew that they were actually designed to do something
> > that complicated.  Would this suggest that replacing seatbelts after 5-10
> > years would be a good idea?  How major does the accident have to be to
> > warrant a replacement? (My car, when my mother was driving it, before I got
> > it, went through 3 minor accidents, mostly people hitting my mother, car
> > spun out once on ice, etc.)
> > Brett Dikeman
> 
> Don't know how major an accident this applies to, but it's certainly
> worth asking for the money from the insureance company for the belts
> even in a minor accident. I was told that you can look at the edges of
> the belts at the little loops of nylon to tell if the loops had been
> pulled into the webbing indicating that the belts had been stretched ,
> but I think it would take an expert.
> Wolff

My possibly mistaken understanding is that the sewn-on label will rip
off of the belt if the belt is stretched enough in a "proper" crash. The
sewing threads aren't strong enough to transmit the load from the belt
to the label. Can anyone substantiate this?

cu
James