Seatbelts Passat = Jetta?

So, I left my dog in the car for a couple of minutes and he chewed my front drivers side seat belt. My local yard always has a large selection of Jettas but not many B4 Passats. Does anyone know if the seat belts are interchangeable?

probably. find the part number on it, look at the ones at junk yard. take measurements. thats my only advice as i dont know if they are, i would assume that they are, the dimensions are about the same on these cars and i dont think VW would have spent more money to make a separate seatbelt for the b4

They are not the same. The entire safety system of the A3 is different than the B4. The B4 carries on with some leftover bits from the B3 days, which is similar to the late A2. The A3 is different. Plus, all the B4s sold here came from Europe (Belgium, mostly), and used one seat belt supplier. All the A3s came from Mexico, with a choice of two different suppliers.

Now, this is not to say you could not bolt one in and make it work, however it may not be designed to work in the same way in a crash as the originals did. But I suspect there are other differences too.

The A3 belt will click-into a B4 receiver. I know this, from installing B4 seats into an A3.

Actually I don't want to ruffle any feathers here but I've had them both apart and out before and the B4 and the late Mk3 belts are remarkably similar.

I owned a 94 Golf with the early belt system (ala late Mk2) and they sucked so when I converted to a full dark interior I swapped over to the newer style belts from a 1997 Jetta GT. The newer style has the cable type tensioning mechanism that runs along the floor, which seems to be similar to the B4 belts that I acquired for my B3V conversion but never used.

IDK if one would work in place of the other or not, the part numbers are different, but the tensioner mechanism is very similar between the two IMO.

Steve

unless your upgrading to a seat belt that has an explosive charge to tighten the belt in an accident or for larger strapping size, as long as you can bolt it down, it will work. Its just a belt. Look at it this way, 4 point and 5 point harnesses dont car what car they go into as long as they are installed properly. I say pull them from the yard and try it. Ill bet you a 6 pack that they work fine.

And I'll bet they won't since the stock seat belts have reinforced mounting points. Unless you can manufacture and move the mounting points, the seat belts will tear away from the sheet metal in an accident.

In addition, most seat belts have specific mounting angles and/or mounts, so they won't work unless they're at the same angle or bolted in the same way. The B4 seat belts are like this.

Im not understanding how one mounting point vs another will cause them to shear the sheet metal. I would think that the mounting for any seat belt would be stronger than your flesh and bones and that would give way before the metal would. Ill take your work for it, you would know better than I. most seat belts are mounted on a swivel so the angels would not matter in that case but probably not in this case. In any case, A welder can solve this one lol. If it where me, i would just put in a 4 point because race car!

The swivel end is not the end I was talking about, it's the other end that also needs to be changed when swapping belts.

And to where would you mount a 4 point harness?

with a rear bar bolt on kit
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DBJR9DC/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I3DRSFLM3IUFZV&colid=1FIAXTNIFN9RJ&psc=1