I am so ridiculously pleased, why didn’t I do it sooner?

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The second feature my car is ‘blessed’ with is a seat belt alarm which makes an infuriating binging noise when the driver doesn’t have the seat belt fastened. When the ignition is turned on, it gives six ‘bings’. After that it only makes the noise if the car is moving forwards at more than about 3 mph and the driver’s seat belt isn’t fastened. That doesn’t sound too bad; after all I normally get in and fasten my seatbelt, and all is well. But sometimes things are not like that - for example if there is a need to stop frequently over a short distance and get out, such as if making deliveries - then it’s just ridiculously tiresome to re-fasten the seatbelt after every stop, especially when driving slowly. In such cases I would simply fasten the seat belt over the empty seat and then get in in front of it - but then of course when the deliveries were finished I would have to unfasten the belt, get in the seat properly and fasten it again - all just an annoying and time-wasting faff. I have been complaining about it for ages, hoping someone could sort it out, but no-one came forward with any suggestions. I even suggested to my partner that solving this annoyance would be an excellent birthday present, but he obviously didn’t feel able to tinker with it either. Then recently I have been making frequent visits to a house where I have to get out, open a gate, and then drive about 100 yards along a narrow, grassy drive. I am simply not going to fasten my seat belt to drive at 5 mph along a narrow path where the only thing I’m likely to ‘hit’ is a bramble or two. But then of course the constant ‘binging’ is infuriating. This was really the last straw and eventually I was inspired to investigate further. I found a couple of wires visible at the base of the seat belt receiver, which were not present on the passenger side, but I couldn’t find where they went from there. I was afraid of simply cutting the wires in case they created some sort of circuit when the belt was fastened, and cutting them would mean that would be broken and perhaps the alarm would sound continuously - that really would be hell especially as I have a 150-mile journey coming up! I groped and grovelled about under the seat but couldn’t find exactly where the wires led. Then today I suddenly thought of looking for help online. A quick Google search and the third page I tried was a forum for owners of my make of car. And lo and behold - several of them were discussing how to switch off this alarm (apparently some cars can develop a fault where it goes off intermittently or even continuously even when the seat belts are fastened). The answer seemed simple so I went to investigate. Of course it wasn’t exactly as described (different models) but the information was enough - I pushed the seat as far back as it would go, found a plastic panel fitted into the floor, prised it off and found two sets of wires going to two connectors. Apparently one might be the air bag. I opted first to disconnect the one with two wires rather than three. Then I turned on the ignition and- Hallelujah! - not a sound. I was so excited I drove a little circuit of our road without a seat belt just to be sure - no bings! So now I’m really very happy indeed. It’s my big achievement of the day - or even the week! The only fly in the ointment is the thought that I could have done this years ago! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.