Driver seatbelt not retracting - at all!

[hebdenwill]

Hello everyone,

I've just become the owner of a 2011 C220 CDI which I'm really pleased with. However, when putting my seatbelt on halfway through a long trip, after a stop, I think I may have tugged it out while it was doing its 'hug'. It didn't roll back in.

At this point, I tried to do the thing you'd normally do to get the seatbelt to take up the slack - pull it out a bit then let it retract, but it just doesn't retract, at all. I pulled it all the way out in the hope it would trigger the spring to rewind it but no dice, I now have an extremely long and therefore useless and unsafe seatbelt!

Has anyone else seen this / is it a known issue? I'm guessing I'll need to take it and have it replaced :/ which is annoying as I've only owned it for 2 days and I imagine that will run me to several hundred pounds!

Any advice or cures you can give would be much appreciated!!!

 

[hebdenwill]

**Update**

I have fixed it! at least for now, hopefully this will help others so I will list what I did below:

In the light of day, without being a couple of hundred miles from home, I set about trying to get the seatbelt to retract. I noticed that if I put the car into reverse or drive, then clipped in my seatbelt, I could hear the tightening motor turning. At full retraction, this pulled some of the belt in, but never got it tight, despite repeating the "ignition off, ignition on, into drive, seatbelt in" routine several times. It was nearly in, but still did not lock on when I pulled it quickly.

At this point I fully pulled the seatbelt out, then gave it one final tug, at which point it did 'lock' and lo and behold, when I let go it spooled right up! I then started the car and put it into drive, and it tightened around me correctly! I wonder if it needed to be 'reset' with a full extension?

Phew! But I will be getting the garage to look at it when it goes for its MOT...