Investigation RQ04008: Vehicles

Status

CLOSED

Opened

Sep 17, 2004

Closed

Jan 6, 2005

Model years

—

Subject

Child restraint harness loosening

Component: Child seat › Retractor

Summary

Recall 04c002 includes the britax husky, marathon, traveller plus, and wizard child safety seats.the defect is harness adjuster slippage causing child restraint harness loosening.the office of defects investigation (odi) opened this recall query (rq) after receiving reports from consumers that the child restraint harness on the subject seat allegedly may loosen after consumers thought that the harness was secure.the super elite was not in the scope of safety recall 04c002, which was initiated by britax in august of 2004.britax corrected the defective recalled seats by replacing the original adjuster strap webbing with a new thicker webbing.both the recalled seats and the subject use an adjuster mechanism identified by britax as an a-lok adjuster.the rq was opened to evaluate whether the recall scope should include the subject super elite seat. Odi determined that the super elite has an a-lok adjuster but the design of the adjuster is significantly different compared to the recalled seats and the webbing for the super elite is 25mm wide compared to the recalled seat webbing width of 38mm.the alleged defect for the super elite appears to not be related to webbing thickness.this rq is closed.the other complaints listed above will be investigated under pe05-001.

An NHTSA investigation looks into whether a safety defect exists. Opening one is not a finding. Outcomes can include a recall, closure without action, or further inquiry.