Seat belt or retractor failure on the 2005 Hyundai Elantra
3 crashes 3 injuries 6 of the 4 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When seat belt or retractor failure gets reported
There are 4 reports of seat belt or retractor failure on the 2005 Hyundai Elantra, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 82,000 miles. It is the 12th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 6,500 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 3 a crash and 3 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $200–$900 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 6 miles, and latest on the 2015 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 17; the 2005 has 4. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Car involved in a low speed (20-25mph) collision. Front left quarter panel engaged rear right of pickup bed. No hood damage occured, minor bumper damage but extensive damage to front left axle assemble when it was broke loose from mountings. Air bag deployed on drivers side. The drivers side seatbelt failed to anchor on hard brake or on impact causing the driver to be flung forward injuring the drivers left shoulder and causing the drivers hand to hit the windshield hard enough to break the windshield. It is unclear weather the air bag deployment caused the arm to hit the windshield. Seatbelt jamed in extended position raising concern by the body repair shop and replacement of the entire seatbelt unit. Furture the body repair shop said that the "burn ring" was not burnt indicating the force retract never engaged upon air bag deployment and seatbelt was not ever retracted after the acciedent -- meaning the way it was extended is the way it was at the time the air bag deployed. Body repair shop has been instructed to return the broked seatbelt assemble to me up on completion of the repairs to the car.
Car involved in a low speed (20-25mph) collision. Front left quarter panel engaged rear right of pickup bed. No hood damage occured, minor bumper damage but extensive damage to front left axle assemble when it was broke loose from mountings. Air bag deployed on drivers side. The drivers side seatbelt failed to anchor on hard brake or on impact causing the driver to be flung forward injuring the drivers left shoulder and causing the drivers hand to hit the windshield hard enough to break the windshield. It is unclear weather the air bag deployment caused the arm to hit the windshield. Seatbelt jamed in extended position raising concern by the body repair shop and replacement of the entire seatbelt unit. Furture the body repair shop said that the "burn ring" was not burnt indicating the force retract never engaged upon air bag deployment and seatbelt was not ever retracted after the acciedent -- meaning the way it was extended is the way it was at the time the air bag deployed. Body repair shop has been instructed to return the broked seatbelt assemble to me up on completion of the repairs to the car.
On wednesday, july 15, 2005 a young man was racing on u.s. Highway 75 in sherman. He rear-ended another southbound car and knocked across a grassy median, into my car head on. My airbag on the driver side deployed immediately, however, the passenger bag did not deploy right away resulting in serious injury to one of my passengers, toni folsom. On initial impact, toni flew forward and her head impacted the windshield, the seat belt then yanked her back and she flew forward again and only then did the airbag deploy. Toni had a broken nose, concussion, 30 stitches in her face, and a perforated colon from the seat belt. The car was totaled. My concern is the fact the airbag deployed late. I know of another man whose sensor in his 2004 hyundai elantra is not working for his passenger bag and the dealership keeps telling him there is nothing wrong with it. Please check into this matter. Thank you, cherie odom . *nm
Also reported on the 2005 Hyundai Elantra
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Other speed control problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Other body or interior problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does seat belt or retractor failure happen on the 2005 Hyundai Elantra?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is seat belt or retractor failure on the 2005 Hyundai Elantra?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed