Seat belts are very essential fitment in a vehicle. It provides safety from the serious injuries during collisions or major accidents. Seat belts hold passengers and protect them from flying forward in the case of panic braking situations. Therefore, it’s important to have strong and durable seatbelts in your car.
A guide on car care tips will help you with proper cleaning, polishing and maintenance of seat belts. You can also search for other handy car maintenance tips on different portals.
How to maintain a car’s seat belts?
Strip the parts: For cleaning the seat belts, you simply need to strip them into parts by removing the buckles and turning them on a soft surface in upward and downward motion. With the help of paint scrapers and a screwdriver, remove the mount tabs and buttons.
Cleaning seatbelts: If your seat is dirty or stained, use a mild soap and lukewarm water to clean it. Don’t use strong or acidic bleach, dye or detergent, since these fluids might damage the basic integrity of seatbelts and gradually weaken them. A dirty seatbelt gets fragile due to regular disintegration of the material.
Polishing and detailing: If the steel part of the buckles gets corrosion, polish it with high-grade chrome cleaner or a steel wool. The plastic buckle covers are easier to detail than the steel buckles. You need wet-sand, sandpaper, a mix of liquid dish soap and water as a lubricant. After polishing the plastic cover, apply a light coat of paint swirl remover and rub it with a soft synthetic pad.
Keep the buckle areas clear: The buckle area is more prone to clog-up with dust and dirt particles or liquids. This prevents them to work properly. By spraying a small amount of WD40, you keep the buckles rust free and smooth. If your car has any seat belt safety or holder issue, due to fault springs in buckle assembly, then get the buckles replaced from any authorized service centre with no delays.
Replace your seatbelt if damaged or worn: If the stitching on the seatbelt is wearing off or buckle holding loops get damaged, it’s best to replace them immediately. Make sure that the worn or damaged seatbelts are replaced only by the professionals from an authorized service center, as the bolts used in seatbelt assembly need to be specific and proportional to the body of the car and torque applied on the bolts.
Following the abovementioned car care tips, you can extend life of your seatbelts. Cleaning seatbelt is a part of regular car maintenance.
Hope these car maintenance tips help you in keeping your vehicle’s seat belts in a good shape for a longer duration.
