Hi All. Please i will like to know if the year written on a seat belt, is the actual year a car is produced. This is because i brought in a year 2000 Toyota 4 runner and on inspection at the port 19999, which is written on the seat belt was taken to be the actual year the ride was produced. So am wandering can the year on the seat belt truly be the production year even when the other documents, title deed & car manual reflects 2000? Or should i believe the authorities were just looking for an opportunity to find fault?
Kindly let me know your view.

Thanks

not really, just like I wanted to sell a range rover, I changed the windscreen and the car seatbelts to 2005 from 2008, now people were judging that the car is 2005. I told them to Google it and also bring their professiona engineers to inspect it.

Personally I feel it just shows manufaturing details for the belt, which include date of manufacture.

olubabatti:
Hi All. Please i will like to know if the year written on a seat belt, is the actual year a car is produced. This is because i brought in a year 2000 Toyota 4 runner and on inspection at the port 19999, which is written on the seat belt was taken to be the actual year the ride was produced. So am wandering can the year on the seat belt truly be the production year even when the other documents, title deed & car manual reflects 2000? Or should i believe the authorities were just looking for an opportunity to find fault?
Kindly let me know your view.

Thanks

it depends remember its a 2000 and now its 2015 how many repairs had happened in the space of 15 years

but also componet can be made is november 1999 and assembled in 2000 production car and the car's first registration would be 2000

so those are two things to consider

The best way to know the year of production of a car is through the vin number. The 10th digit of the vin always denotes the year of production (at least for North American cars).


Also the picture below might be of help decoding the year of production. If the 10th digit is Y, the it is 2000 model, if it is K it is 1989 or 2019 model, etc.

The seat belt helps too, but if a car was manufactured in late 1999, then it will have 1999 on the seat belt but on the vin it will denote 2000 model.

To answer your question briefly, yes, it does. You can tell from the condition of the seat belts what year they were made. Modern seat belts in modern cars come with a Seat Belt Extender, and older cars sometimes don't have them. But again it is not quite exact information, because if you buy the car not in a salon, but at once from a man, he may have all sorts of modifications and innovations at once. So be careful with this!

Actually, most times, when a new model of a car is about to be released, it's production would have been start a year ago. This means they would build and stock the car well before the launch date. So when it is launched, there is stock.

The year on the seatbelt will reflect the production date but not always the model year.