AtWhatMileage
Airbag · 6 owner reports

Seat belt or retractor failure on the 2005 Toyota Tundra

5 crashes 5 injuries 10 of the 6 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 6 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 6
With an odometer reading 6
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 17%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 10
Typical repair $200–$900
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 19th

When seat belt or retractor failure gets reported

There are 6 reports of seat belt or retractor failure on the 2005 Toyota Tundra, 6 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 19th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 6 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 155,288 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, 5 a crash and 5 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 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 40,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 205,000 miles.

By volume the 2000 carries the most reports, with 20; the 2005 has 6. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

I had my 2005 tundra bed loaded to the maximum advertised weight capacity. Once I entered the hwy and reached a speed of 45 the vehicle went out of control. I have been driving for many years and have never experienced a loss of control like this. The vehicle left the road and flipped upside down. The cab held up great and everyone was wearing their seatbelt therefor there were not signifigant injuries. Atleast one of the tires were off the rim but I'm not sure if this was a result of the accident or a cause.

3,000 miles NHTSA complaint 545514 filed 2005-07-22

Tl* the contact owns a 2005 toyota tundra. The contact stated that while driving approximately 55 MPH, the front passenger's side tire blew. As a result, the contact crashed into several trees. The air bags failed to deploy and the seat belt failed to properly restrain the contact. The contact was transported to the hospital where he received treatment for several injuries including injuries to the neck and vertebrae, a partial collapsed lung, rotator cuff injuries to the right shoulder, and tears to the biceps. A police report was filed of the incident. The vehicle was towed to a body shop and declared destroyed. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure and current mileage was 180,000. *tr

180,000 miles NHTSA complaint 994406 filed 2013-07-16

Tl* the contact owns a 2005 toyota tundra. The contact stated that while driving approximately 55 MPH, the front passenger's side tire blew. As a result, the contact crashed into several trees. The air bags failed to deploy and the seat belt failed to properly restrain the contact. The contact was transported to the hospital where he received treatment for several injuries including injuries to the neck and vertebrae, a partial collapsed lung, rotator cuff injuries to the right shoulder, and tears to the biceps. A police report was filed of the incident. The vehicle was towed to a body shop and declared destroyed. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure and current mileage was 180,000. *tr

180,000 miles NHTSA complaint 994407 filed 2013-07-16

Also reported on the 2005 Toyota Tundra

Other body or interior problem

49 reports median 113k

Rust or structural corrosion

45 reports median 140k

Airbag inflator rupture

27 reports median 80k

Other suspension problem

27 reports median 103k

Other powertrain problem

20 reports median 66k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 6 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 6 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 Toyota Tundra?

Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 155,000 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 Toyota Tundra?

6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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