[gomzi]

In November 2022, we were shopping for a new car as the old one had broken down for the umpteenth time.

As luck may have it, the last breakdown was right in front of the local Tata Motors dealership. Since the Nexon was on my shortlist, I decided to wander inside and check it out while waiting for the mechanic to arrive.

My priorities within a budget of Rs.15 Lakhs on-road were

1. Safety - in a world of 5 star safety rated cars, I didn't want to look at anything other, especially since this would be the primary vehicle
2. Automatic transmission - to help my with the ageing knees and increasing traffic

The shortlist with this criteria was a small one. XUV 300 AMT, Nexon AMT.

After testdrives, the AMT gearboxes were out of the shortlist due to headnod effect, but at the behest of the persistent Tata Motors salesman, I tried the Altroz DCA.
Boy did I love that gearbox. Miles better than the AMT and cheaper on-road too. I just wish this gearbox was provided on the Nexon.
A subsequent test drive along with the family and the Altroz was booked and delivered within a couple of weeks! The dealership had the colour and variant we wanted available in the stockyard, and the PDI checked out.

Since my usage is very low, the car doesn't really have much miles on it, and I had no specific complaints about the car.

Until now that it is, and thus this thread.

A couple of weeks ago, the car saw its only occasion to have all 5 seats occupied. As a safety aware family, all rear occupants wear seatbelts too, and thus the rear center seatbelt (lapbelt really) was put to use for the first time without any incident.
The next day when the missus tried to fasten that center lapbelt again, she said it wasn't getting fastened. And a half minute later she proclaimed the seatbelt buckle had well, buckled!

The buckle just came off in 4 pieces!

This was the first time in 30 years of car ownership in the family that a seatbelt had malfunctioned in this fashion.

So much for 5-star safety!

If such a basic safety part like the seatbelt - which we all assume will save us in the worst case scenario - can fail so spectacularly under no stress, I wonder how it'll fare when actually needed under stress, the rear center seat occupant is likely to fly through the front windscreen.

Anyway, an email with pictures to Tata customer care yielded hardly any response for over a week, so i posted the issue and picture on twitter yesterday, tagging @tatamotors & @tatamotors_cars, which got an immediate and urgent response by Tata who handed it off to their local dealership.

The dealership (Heritage Motors, Thane) sent a mechanic home today to replace the seatbelt and have promised to follow-up with Tata Motors on why the part failed. I shall followup with them as well and post any updates here.

I'm putting this thread up for awareness of other Tata Cars owners, the escalation procedures (just tag Tata Motors on social media, they seem to sleep on emails) and documenting this seatbelt broken issue which I've not seen reported by anyone earlier.

Some Pics:-

[Nithesh_M]

From the photos it looks like a DIY Ikea furniture. I don't think Gncap checks for the strength and durability of seatbelts which is rather ironic because seatbelts are your primary restraint system in the case of an accident. Any failure in the PRS totally nullifies the Secondary restraint system which is the airbags.

So much for the testing standards at Ncap.

[gomzi]

Originally Posted by Nithesh_M

From the photos it looks like a DIY Ikea furniture. I don't think Gncap checks for the strength and durability of seatbelts which is rather ironic because seatbelts are your primary restraint system in the case of an accident. Any failure in the PRS totally nullifies the Secondary restraint system which is the airbags.

So much for the testing standards at Ncap.

After this incident, I went and saw the GNCAP crash test video, and what do you know? On the rear, only the child car seats are tested by GNCAP. They might be restrained by ISOFIX, so I assume the actual adult rear seatbelts didn't get tested?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL1JgzfBvWk

That said, even the previous cars we've owned over the years - Premier 118 NE, Maruti Zen (gen 1), Hyundai Accent, Tata Indigo CS, Honda Civic - didn't have a disintegrating seatbelt buckle feature. We've been using seatbelts in front and back seats since ~1998 when the 118 NE was the first car we owned with those installed.

Just visually comparing the rear center seatbelt with the rear side seatbelts, the plastic quality looks different.

[zadoom]

Originally Posted by gomzi

After this incident, I went and saw the GNCAP crash test video, and what do you know? On the rear, only the child car seats are tested by GNCAP. .

Though I haven't seen the video but after reading your first post and the point on GNCAP my first thought was also the same that GNCAP tests only the rear outward seats and not the centre one. Infact I had used social media as well a few years back (probably post launch of Harrier & Safari) on how they don't have a single car with a proper 3-point seatbelt for all rear passengers. Though they market their safety ratings not having a proper 3-point seatbelt for the 3rd rear passenger is not good. But no one from TATA acknowledged or responded (which was anyways expected).

But what you encountered is just something else. An additional check point for all cars in general and TATA cars in specific from now onwards. The first check is going to be today evening on my Storme as even that has the same lap belt for the middle passenger.

[gomzi]

Originally Posted by zadoom

.......
The first check is going to be today evening on my Storme as even that has the same lap belt for the middle passenger.

Yeah, just check whether its the same quality and type of buckle as the rear outward side seatbelts.
In the case of the Altroz, they're starkly different in touch & feel as well as a little bit in the design too.

[zadoom]

Originally Posted by gomzi

Yeah, just check whether its the same quality and type of buckle as the rear outward side seatbelts.
In the case of the Altroz, they're starkly different in touch & feel as well as a little bit in the design too.

Thanks. Infact I did check. The material thanfully looks the same across the 3 rear passenger seat belts and at least the buckles don't show any sign of imminent failure. However something that I have noticed earlier as well and plan to get checked during the next service is the points on the rear floor where they are bolted seems to be rusting a bit. Want to get the seatbelts checked for any such failure modes in the next service.

Cheers,

[vredesbyrd]

I'm just glad that it didn't happen while you were on the move

OT: Guess people need to take off their rose-tinted glasses about Tata. So much for QC and international standards

[kadanaJ]

Tata and GNCAP can harp on about 5-star safety, but 5-star safety completely falls apart in the face of poor QC.

We can assume that the cars Tata sent to GNCAP for testing were well built and had QC checks done multiple-times.

But based on the above seatbelt incident, we cannot assume that the car customers will buy from Tata will have 5-star safety. It's not just seatbelt's falling apart, there are dozens of things that can go wrong if QC is not done correctly, from ABS, TCS sensors failing, airbags failing to deploy, or maybe some part not being welded correctly affecting the structural rigidity of the vehicle.

Until they sort out their QC, it's a gamble whether your Tata vehicle will provide you with 5-star safety if a major collision occurs.

[GeeTee TSI]

Gosh! The all important component keeping occupants restrained (and safe!)

I hope it's not a sub par product value engineered into the least used feature in a car (let's face it, lap belt in the middle seat)
Worse, it should not snowball into recalls across OEMs since the regular few vendors might be supplying to many!

[Turbotechnixx]

My post doesn't mean that I am favoring TATA motors in any case, and this quality is unacceptable. But, at the same time, I wouldn't blame TATA motors entirely as TML doesn't manufacture these seat belts by themselves. It comes from vendors like IFB (yes, the same washing machine/refrigerator manufacturing company ) and a few other suppliers. A similar incident had happened with me in my S-Cross where the rear seat belt just wouldn't engage.

The seat belt buckle wouldn't lock even after inserting the buckle with all my might. The same was conveyed to MSIL ASC at every service but no one took cognizance of the issue. A while later, I stopped following up as the car was used only inside the city. S-Cross is rated 5 Stars in GNCAP. So, 5 stars or no stars, TATA or MSIL (MSIL is rated no.1 in JD Power Asia) - the issue remained unresolved. It is important to how TATA motors did the damage control after they learned the issue. In my case, Maruti did nothing, absolutely nothing.

[VaidhiR]

Originally Posted by Nithesh_M

From the photos it looks like a DIY Ikea furniture. I don't think Gncap checks for the strength and durability of seatbelts which is rather ironic because seatbelts are your primary restraint system in the case of an accident. Any failure in the PRS totally nullifies the Secondary restraint system which is the airbags.

So much for the testing standards at Ncap.

No offence but NCAP does not have to check for the quality of belts.

God forbid, there is an accident due to sudden loss of pressure, are you expecting to blame NCAP for not checking the quality of tires? Because tires are the only source of contact between the vehicle and the road?

NCAP has the duty to evaluate the safety of cars not to check for QC failures of individual manufacturers. It comes with an assumption that cars have everything in order and they are functioning optimally.

Your question should be directed at the seat belt supplier because TATA (Or any OEM for that matter) does not manufacture their own belts. They get them as completed modules before integrating them into their cars.

[gomzi]

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

Until they sort out their QC, it's a gamble whether your Tata vehicle will provide you with 5-star safety if a major collision occurs.

Yes, thats the concern i've got now, at what point does poor QC make their cars unsafe?

Originally Posted by Turbotechnixx

My post doesn't mean that I am favoring TATA motors in any case and this type of quality is totally unacceptable. But, at the same time I wouldn't blame TATA motors entirely as TML doesn't manufacture these seat belts by themselves. It comes from customers like IFB (yes, the same washing machine / refrigerator manufacturing company ) and a few other suppliers. A similar incident had happened with me in my S-Cross where the rear seat belt just wouldn't engaged. The seat belt buckle wouldn't lock even after inserting the buckle with all my might. The same was conveyed to MSIL ASC at every service but no one took cognizance of the issue. A while later, I too stopped following up as the car was being used only inside the city. S-Cross is rated 5 Stars in GNCAP. So, 5 stars or no stars, TATA or MSIL (MSIL is rated no.1 in JD Power Asia) - the issue remained unresolved. What is important is how TATA motors did the damage control after they got to know the issue. In my case Maruti did nothing, absolutely nothing.

Thanks for sharing that you've also faced an issue like this. In my case, reaching out to Tata customercare email didn't get any traction for over a week, so I took to twitter and then the ball got rolling really fast.
The dealership sent out a replacement and installed it at my home the very next morning. So on that front, I atleast got a good response.
Now following up for root cause.

[arjab]

Safety belts are homologated by the supplier for the regions and markets the vehicles are sold and sent to the manufacturer for fitment to their vehicles alongwith all the necessary QC documents. In fact most major sub assemblies are certified by suppliers and sent to the OEM. This is a global practice in vehicle manufacturing.
Yes, incoming part quality inspection is there with all OEM's but it is the OEM's decision whether to test each and every individual part or undertake random tests. Usually the latter is resorted to by mass market OEM's due to volume pressures, as it physically becomes difficult to check each and every part for each and every car being made.

Whatever it is, the seatbelt tongue slipping out of its plastic casing can in no way be condoned. Tata Motors should do an immediate root cause analysis at the supplier end to find out what went wrong and whether this is an isolated case or a whole batch of lap belts have been affected. Sooner TML does it, the better.

[MT_Hyderabad]

I am waiting for a recall notification from Tata. Let's hope they test and replace all the buckles of this batch/manufacturer.

[Nissan1180]

Looks like a case of bad material quality which would be present in other vehicles as well. I’m not surprised that they allowed this to happen. Unlike what people believe, this company is not customer friendly at all and they make compromises at a fundamental level to achieve cost targets. Their supplier engagement is almost like a roadside bargain session.