Seat belt warning behaviour

[adclawrence]

Hi,

I don't know if it's just mine or whether it's a standard VE thing, but I've noticed a little quirk with my '06 Calais in that during engine startup, the instrument cluster will chime (presumably to remind the driver to fasten seatbelt) but if I'm actually driving and my seatbelt comes off (safely, on a private road) the car won't make a peep about it. I'll just get a little red light pop up.

Seems a bit counter intuitive for the car to make a fuss when I insert the key but not when I'm actually rolling without my belt done up. I swear I've seen another VE go bonkers with warnings when the belt is undone while driving.

 

[Dayvo]

The light on my dash will flash but not chime when i start the car till i put belt on . If i drive with it off it will chime and flash over about 20 kph . Same if i take belt off when driving

 

[07GTS]

i always get the chime if i key on without belt clipped in, then dont hear it after that

 

[adclawrence]

Interesting! Must be a BCM software thing then.

I drove around a couple of other VEs this week actually and tried it out. Both the MY08.5 and MY09 (calais and omega) that I drove chimed and came up with "Please Fasten Driver Seat Belt" or something with a little animation picture of the belt guy in the red light.

 

[greenacc]

The 06 models will be the odd ones out. After that Holden was chasing a 5 star safety rating and had to add warning bells and whistles to just about everything.

 

[Xplaya]

I think my R8 had the chime disabled when tuned by previous owner, cause mine don't chime at all. Just shows the light in the corner.

But my SV6 would chime after 10 or 20 km.

 

[adclawrence]

I've always been fond of cars with warnings and chimes. Feels interactive, safe and as if it's designed with the driver's wellbeing in mind.

Despite it's bland and silent nature, my '06 Calais shows no signs of timing chain stretch or transmission failure at 122,000kms - so I'll keep it.