AtWhatMileage
Airbag · 5 owner reports

Seat belt or retractor failure on the 2014 Hyundai Elantra

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.

Reports of this failure 5
With an odometer reading 4
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 50%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $200–$900
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 27th

When seat belt or retractor failure gets reported

There are 5 reports of seat belt or retractor failure on the 2014 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 27th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 4 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 30,839 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

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 2014 has 5. 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.

Median
  1. 1996 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 38k
  3. 1998 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  4. 1999 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  5. 2000 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 82k
  6. 2001 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 40k
  7. 2002 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 36k
  8. 2003 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 57k
  9. 2004 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 97k
  10. 2005 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 7k
  11. 2007 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 35k
  12. 2008 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 57k
  13. 2009 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  14. 2010 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 60k
  15. 2011 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 10
  16. 2012 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 45k
  17. 2013 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 50k
  18. 2014 (this one) 31k
  19. 2015 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 106k
  20. 2016 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 68k
  21. 2017 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 42k
  22. 2018 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 27k
  23. 2019 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 6
  24. 2020 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure 400
  25. 2021 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  26. 2022 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  27. 2023 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  28. 2025 Hyundai Elantra seat belt or retractor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —

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.

Both front seatbelts are difficult to latch and determine if they are secure. Several times, the drivers seatbelt has failed to be secured properly (come unlatched while the vehicle is in motion) due to short length of stationary portion of seatbelt. The stationary portion is too short, and located in a "hole" between the drivers hip and console. The manufacturer was contacted and they determined that the system was operating "as designed" and told me there was nothing they could do. I advised them that they designed the system that was malfunctioning, and they were failing to "own their problem". Hyundai has refused (in writing) to remedy this safety defect. I encounter no problems with other hyundai vehicles which I have operated extensively. *js

1,500 miles NHTSA complaint 1136067 filed 2014-12-03

Also reported on the 2014 Hyundai Elantra

Other engine problem

104 reports median 86k

Other brake problem

58 reports median 91k

Other steering problem

27 reports median 14k

Other electrical problem

26 reports median 41k

Other speed control problem

19 reports median 15k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 5 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 5 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 2014 Hyundai Elantra?

Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 30,000 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 2014 Hyundai Elantra?

5 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