NHTSA Complaint #11420440 — 2016 SUBARU CROSSTREK

This is a suspected problem with the side airbags located in the driver/front passenger seats. The seat upholstery has two straps that guide the airbag into the upholstery seam when the airbag deploys. Over time, the straps chafe on the sharp edges of the seat frame and wear through. As a result, there is a risk that the seat airbag will not deploy correctly. I discovered this problem when I was performing the following procedure https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2018/MC-10140486-9999.pdf.To be clear, my airbag has not deployed and I do not know what would happen had the airbag deployed. I'm attaching some photos. The photos show the two straps, one of which is mostly worn through. They also show the straps in their intended install location. There is a photo with some arrows and comments. Another thing to note is that I have seen multiple seats with this problem from cars with much lower mileage. I have another set of seats from a Subaru WRX that also has this issue. Subaru seats share a common architecture and the airbags are the same on Crosstrek/Impreza/WRX/Forester. In addition, a fix seems rather simple. This would involve applying some strong tape to the sharp edges of the seat frame to cover the sharp edges.