NHTSA Complaint #11641514 — 2017 FORD EXPLORER

In a 2017 Ford Explorer Platinum the passenger 2nd row seatbelt malfunctions and will not extend. It is available for inspection. The seatbelt first binded (or became stuck) March 2024 and taken into Ford dealership and they reported "Upon inspection of seat belt, found to be internally binding at the retractor. Requires replacement." They ordered replacement but said it was on backorder, it took months before replacement arrived. When replacement arrived it was taken in to Ford dealership to replace but Ford reported "Replaced RR seat belt retractor. After installation, found a faulty part was sent. Reinstalled old seat belt and ordered new belt." Returned to Ford dealership for the second replacement seatbelt and it was installed and at time was working. Now for the third time (During the next several months after the third seatbelt is installed) it has gotten stuck (binded) and unable to extend several times and unusable. Resulting in having to relocate the passenger to another seat. Safety concern: users may not have a working and reliable seatbelt. Passenger may not be restrained with seatbelt or it may force a child from sitting in the rear seat to relocate to a more dangerous front seat due to lack of working seatbelts. This seems to show that the seatbelt mechanism must be defective in that 3 seatbelts are having similar problem in a 6-12 month window. Have also seen similar reports of this issue on Reddit.