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1996 BUICK RIVIERA — Complaint #833238

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NHTSA Complaint about SEAT BELTS:FRONT:WEBBING filed December 28, 2010

NHTSA complaint #833238 (ODI reference 10373140) concerns a 1996 BUICK RIVIERA and was filed on December 28, 2010. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 18, 2010. The vehicle had 112,500 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seat belts:front:webbing, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.

The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.

Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same BUICK RIVIERA cohort independently describe similar seat belts:front:webbing failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 1996 BUICK RIVIERA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
1996 BUICK RIVIERA
Component
SEAT BELTS:FRONT:WEBBING
State
California
Mileage
112,500 mi

Complaint Description

SEAT BELT FAILURE: THE SEAT BELT FASTENER(CLASP/HOOK) ON MY 1996 BUICK RIVIERA VIN # [XXX] HAS FAILED. INSERTION OF THE MALE END OF THE BELT INTO THE FEMALE FASTENER FAILS TO RESULT IN THE UNIT LOCKING. BUICK STATES THEY HAVE NO RECALL ON THIS ISSUE OR ANY RESPONSIBILITY TO REPAIR IT. THE REAR PASSENGER SEAT BELT (LEFT SIDE, I.E. BEHIND DRIVER) FAILS TO RETRACT THE BELT OR SNUG IT UP AFTER THE BELT IS FASTENED. THIS RESULTS IN MORE THAN A FOOT OF SLACK BELT AND THUS AFFORDS LITTLE PROTECTION TO A PASSENGER IN THE EVENT OF ACCIDENT. ALTHOUGH THERE IS A BUICK RECALL ON PRECISELY THIS PROBLEM FOR THIS MAKE AND MODEL CAR (GM 00023, DATED 15 NOVEMBER 2000, IN RESPONSE TO A 28 FEBRUARY 2000 NHTSA RECALL ORDER, NUMBER 00V057000) BUICK TELLS ME IT DOES NOT COVER MY VEHICLES VIN NUMBER AND IS ALSO NOT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO REPAIR. SINCE BOTH ISSUES CLEARLY INVOLVE SAFETY ISSUES, I THOUGHT THE NHTSA WOULD BE INTERESTED. [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 833238
ODI Number 10373140
Date Filed December 28, 2010
Failure Date December 18, 2010
VIN 1G4GD2213T4

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.