Chevrolet Sonic owners have reported 13 seat belt related problems since 1996. Table 1 shows the 1 most common seat belt problems. The number one most common problem is related to the vehicle's seat belt (13 problems). For details of each of the problem category, use the links in the table.
| Problem Category | Number of Problems |
|---|---|
| Seat Belt problems |
The pretensioner cable that secures the end of the seatbelt to the seat frame had severed. I am told the pretensioner has a small explosive inside its barrel that I assume releases some sort of spring internally upon impact of a collision. The release of this spring is supposed to pull the pretensioner cable downwards and by extension pull the seatbelt end tighter. This in conjunction with the seatbelt retractor would then keep the driver or passenger tight to the seat in the event of an accident. I notice the cable for the driver side pretensioner over the last few months had strands of steel breaking until it had finally completely severed. I have kept both halves of the severed cable if inspection is requested. This is an extremely unsafe situation to occur. Had I gotten into an accident with the cable partially or completely broken it would have rendered the seatbelt essentially useless. There were no warning lights or associated codes ever displayed from the vehicle’s computer. There were no inspections done by insurance, police, manufacturer, dealership or any others. I ended up ordering the part online to fix myself. I used all manufacturers torque specs and procedures to replace. I fixed it myself because it was my daily driver vehicle and I needed to have it working safely as soon as possible. When I noticed the cable had completely broken I drove my vehicle home and did not drive it again until I had the new part and it was replaced which was about two weeks later. I had asked the dealer and searched for recalls for my vehicle and neither the dealer nor the NHTSA recall search showed anything regarding issues with the pretensioner cable. I did end up seeing gm had issued a recall for a similar pretensioner cable (about 2500 vehicles) for a few of their full sized trucks and suvs. The claim was based on where the cable was in the vehicle it had abnormal amounts of metal fatigue from drivers exiting and entering. I believe the same issue happened to me.
I was driving my 2012 Chevrolet Sonic on April 26 and was rear ended my seatbelt did not engage and I was injured. I was rushed to the hospital for a concussion and on may 4th I got dizzy from my concussion from the accident suffered on April 26 and lost control of my vehicle and struck a concrete barrier on i20 west then bounced of the barrier and struck the barrier yet again. My seatbelt never engaged and my airbags never deployed either time striking the barrier nor the prior accident.
Drivers side seatbelt latch will no longer catch and lock when fastneing seatbelt.
I bought a 2016 chevy Sonic lt in January of 2020. It has only has 30,000 miles on it and has been well maintained. Initially, I believed that the computer was just slow. In March, 2020 I noticed that when I would turn the car on the radio/computer would sometimes take several minutes to boot up. Then once booted, the back-up camera lines would not show up. Only occasionally would the guiding lines appear on the screen. Then, a problem developed where after I turned the car off and locked the doors, the radio would continue playing until the vehicle was restarted or the battery was disconnected. This first occurred in may 2020 and would occur periodically over the next several months. In June 2020, the radio would randomly not boot when started or boot even more slowly than usual. Sometimes I could drive ten or twenty minutes before the computer would finally turn on. Other times the computer would never turn on. Yet again, the only solution was to restart the car or disconnect the battery. On August 1, 2020, the radio will not turn on at all, even after restarting the car or reconnecting the battery. Now that the radio is completely nonoperational, other systems have been effected, too. For example, the blinkers do not signal properly. Although they blink, I do not receive a notification that they are engaged (no blinking sound). The seat belt, door ajar, and key in ignition warning do not sound anymore either. Additionally, the collision notification and lane recognition no longer produce an audible warning. It does not matter whether the car is stationary or in motion, the radio and all related sound components do not work at all. I have not found any solution yet. There have been recalls for problems such as these for this vehicle, but none of them are currently open.
The passenger seat belt does not clip or will come undone at any given time. I made the dealership aware of the concern when the vehicle had approximately 39,000 miles. They stated that since it was out of warranty it did not qualify for production defect. This is a safety concern that could endanger the life of a person if west belt fails during a crash.
Seat belt tensioner cables frayed and broke off.
We owns a 2015 Chevrolet Sonic. When the vehicle was started, we noticed that the air bag warning sensor illuminated without warning. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer (Chevrolet -5925 us 90/ milton, FL 32583) where it was diagnosed that the failure codes (dtc c0186, c0196, c0287) appeared. We was informed that isn't a recall for this problem on this models. ( air bags and seat belts are a safety device, this fault should be a recall issue). We fount a service bulletin : sb-10059177-1527 from gm for the failure.
Drivers side seat belt tensioner cable snapped while driving on the freeway.
On 1/31/2016 a vehicle pulled out in front of me. The first and biggest issue was the airbag never went off and the seat belt tensioners did not lock the belts either. I went forward and hit my head on the steering wheel rendering me unconscious!!! almost the whole front end had to be replaced e. G. : grill and front panel, left and right front quarter panels, radiator, both wheel wells, suspension on both sides and everything that goes with those plus a whole lot of other things like the radiator, coolant and washer tanks etc. Etc. . . . This was a full-frontal wreck and not a single airbag went off!!! secondly are the abs and traction control. The roads were a little slick so I had the tc on. When I hit my brakes all they did, have done since I bought the car, and continue to do to this day, is immediately lock up! I had zero control of my car. This car has, by far, the worst abs system I have ever used. The tc is complete shit, too!!! thirdly, every time I start the car the engine seems to misfire or something! it rattles and shakes the whole car, hard!!! after a few seconds it seems to find it's groove and idles normally. I have brought the car in to the local chevy dealership where I purchased the car to address these problems. All they tell me is they are design and/or manufacturing flaws. They said I can pay to fix these issues with my own money or wait and see if the issues become recalls. Which, according to my research, have not yet. To me, these are some pretty big safety issues the manufacturer should be addressing!!! and why aren't they????? I have photos of the accident, but can't seem to find them anywhere. I'll come back if I find them.
When I have a passenger in my car the light will stay off for the airbag and so will the sat belt light when I am seating still anywhere from a parking spot to a stop light anywhere my car will idel up to 2500-3000 rpms and my feet re on the break and clutch if I dont watch closely and let the break off any my car will take off.
The contact owns a 2012 Chevrolet Sonic. The contact stated that the seat belt latch that attaches the seat belt to the vehicle seat fractured on the driver side and became detached. The contact stated that the passenger side seat belt experienced the same fracture. The contact took the vehicle to the dealer where it was diagnosed that the seat belt needed to be replaced. The manufacturer stated that the vehicle would be repaired. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 145,573.
When a passenger is present, the air bag and seatbelt indicator does not indicate that they are active like they are supposed to.
The car hesatates, the radio some times does't come on, the seat belts do not tien up when you buckle up, and the seats are very low to the ground for a handicap person.