The driver's seat belt failed on my 2003 Chevy Suburban lt. From the time I purchased the vehicle new in Oct 2003 until the seat belt finally outright failed, I noticed several instances where the seat belt tension locking mechanism would apparently jam and either not release for proper adjustment, or fail to engage and take up extra belt slack. This seemed to self correct for short periods before re-emerging. Finally, the tension mechanism stopped working completely. This left my seat belt totally limp and useless with no spring-like function to take-up the excess belt portion and unable to properly tighten and secure the driver in place. I called my chev dealership and expressed my desire to have this fixed immediately as a safety issue. They argued with me as to whether the symptom I described was actually a problem or not and indicated that they would have to order parts. Approx. 10 days later they notified me that I could bring it in for repair, but that they would assess carefully if actually a warranty item or not. Upon bringing the vehicle in, the chev dealership mechanic decided that yes - they would fix it under warranty. The repair however, was quite lengthy in time and involved three chev mechanics who worked in greta frustration and confusion as to how to replace the belt and tension device as they had little experience or knowledge in how to actually install the new part. I got the distinct impression that a proper tech support manual was either lacking or they simply chose not to follow it very well. Regardless, some thee hours later they deemed the belt fixed - and to their credit, I have not had any recurrent problem with the seat belt mechanism. In hindsight, I'm not sure how frequent this particular safety failure has occurred in 2003 chev Suburban, but I decided to make it a matter of record in case chev needs to better address how dealership mechanics should respond to similar critical safety repairs in the future.

- Bolling Afb, DC, USA