Front Seat Belt Anchorage problems of the 1997 Oldsmobile Silhouette

The driver side seat belt snapped without cause. Oldsmobile refuses to stand behind the problem and fix it. The people I have spoken with at Oldsmobile just fed the company line of "the warranty is for 3 years or 30,000 miles. . . " when I asked to speak with someone higher, they refused to put me through, stating that I would get the same answer. The dealership in our area which will be fixing the belt is charging us almost 200. 00 dollars for this repair. This is an item that should never, ever break, and it did. Oldsmobile sees nothing wrong with this and refuses to replace the belt free of charge. I am now concerned for the safety of my family in this vehicle. What other defective safety items are yet to rear their ugly head? when will I discover them? when I need them most? a defective seat belt could have been the difference between life and death should my wife had gotten into an accident. Oldsmobile does not care. I will never buy another Oldsmobile, nor will I ever buy another gm product because of this experience. When I told the representative from Oldsmobile (the one who refused to allow me to speak with her supervisor) that I was speaking with an attorney to see if he could force the issue and get Oldsmobile to take soem responsibility for building a vehicle with defective safety features, the woman said she could no longer talk to me and hung up. I hope that there is something that the ntsa can do to hold Oldsmobile accountable in this, and any future defective safety equipment situation. It would be only right that they replace a defective seatbelt, irregardless of how long the warranty has been expired. Someone needs to hold the manufacturers accountable before another firestone tire-like disaster occurs.

My approx 75lb dog was belted to the passenger seat belt while the car was parked to prevent him from accessing the contents of the rear compartment. Because his usual collar-to-seatbelt leash was in another vehicle, I accomplished this via a thin (ladies') silk scarf in a simple knot around his collar. When my husband came along a few minutes later, he opened the passenger door for the dog, not realizing the dog was restrained. The dog jumped out of the car: the seatbelt, not the silk scarf, tore! the sealtbelt tore literally in half. The tear is not at a seam or at the clip, but rather in the webbing itself. What if this had been a high speed collision? my husband and I are both physicians - my husband an er doc - and neither of us has heard of such a thing. We have contacted the dealer, who stated that it should not have happened, but wants approx $200 for the repair. In addition to safety concerns for other vehicles, I am reprting this because I think charging for a safety-related equipment failure is unreasonable. Thanks for your time! pat wells.