Mazda Not a Manual manual Seat Belt Pretensioner and Load Limiting Systems

Essential Safety Equipment

Seat Belt Systems

Seat Belt Pretensioner and Load Limiting Systems

For optimum protection, the driver and passenger seat belts are equipped with pretensioner and load limiting systems. For both these systems to work properly you must wear the seat belt properly.

Pretensioners:

In moderate or severe frontal or near- frontal accidents, the air bag and pretensioner systems deploy simultaneously. The seat belt retractors remove slack quickly as the air bags are expanding. Any time the air bags and front seat belt pretensioners have deployed they must be replaced.

In addition, the pretensioner system for the front passenger, like the front passenger air bag, is designed to only deploy in accordance with the total seated weight on the front passenger seat.

For details, refer to the front passenger seat weight sensors (page 2-37).

Load limiter:

The load limiting system releases belt webbing in a controlled manner to reduce belt force on the occupant's chest. While the most severe load on a seat belt occurs in frontal collisions, the load limiter has an automatic mechanical function and can activate in any accident mode with sufficient occupant movement.

Even if the pretensioners have not deployed, the load limiting function must be checked by an Authorized Mazda Dealer after any collision.

WARNING

Wear seat belts only as recommended in this owner's manual:

Incorrect positioning of the driver and passenger seat belts is dangerous. Without proper positioning, the pretensioner and load limiting systems cannot provide adequate protection in an accident and this could result in serious injury. For more details about wearing seat belts, refer to “Fastening the seat belts” (page 2-11).

Have your seat belts changed immediately if the pretensioner or load limiter has been expended:

Always have an Authorized Mazda Dealer immediately inspect the seat belt pretensioners and air bags after any collision. Like the air bags, the seat belt pretensioners and load limiters will only function once and must be replaced after any collision that caused them to deploy. A seat belt with an expended pretensioner or load limiter is still better than wearing no seat belt at all; however, if the seat belt pretensioners and load limiters are not replaced, the risk of injury in a collision will increase.

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