GUIDE: How to disable the annoying 6 chimes on engine start when the driver seatbelt is not buckled
If you're like me and live in the Midwest (or another location with an oftentimes-frigid climate), you probably experience this a lot. I oftentimes start my car when I'm not planning on driving off anytime soon to warm up the engine and car's climate, especially when I need to clear snow off it.
Here's an example of what I mean, taken earlier this year.
Sometimes I'm not even sitting inside the car when I start it up. If I start the engine while walking+talking with someone else, the chimes that play to punish you for not already having the drivers seatbelt buckled are just grating after you've heard them for the 500th time.
I did this trick on my '24 Impreza based on a tip from the Subaru Outback forums which detailed this process for the '23 Outback, so it likely works on the majority of recent Subaru car models.
The process is:
- Unscrew the two T10 Security screws on the bottom of the seatbelt receptacle
- Pry the plastic cover off the rest of the seatbelt receptacle by tilting it, from the bottom outwards
- Once it's off, on the inside of the plastic cover piece there is a white slider on a PCB. Move it towards the base of the receptacle. The white slider gets moved to the base when the seatbelt is inserted, and moved back the top when there is no seatbelt. All we're doing is moving it there permanently, so the car always thinks that the driver seatbelt is buckled.
- Replace the plastic cover onto the seatbelt receptacle, and replace the two Security Torx screws.
- Done! Now there's no annoying 6 chimes on startup.
Here's an album with step-by-step pictures if you want to follow the process
And finally, the fruits of our labor: Look ma, no chimes!
(and as comparison, here's a video of the regular engine start with the chimes)
To reverse this 'mod', just do the process again, but leave the white slider back at the top when replacing the plastic cover.
Before the annoying moralizers that defend the ""safety"" chimes, beeps, buzzers, and other doodads on Subarus show up like they always do, I just want to clarify: I always wear my seatbelt while driving. This is just to make the car shut up about something that has ZERO safety benefit, that was clearly NOT designed with the experience of owning a car in a snowy climate in mind.
I obviously do not advise driving a car without a seatbelt in the year 2000+26. However, if someone seriously needs to be convinced by a guy on reddit.com of all places to wear a seatbelt while driving, they're clearly already a candidate for a future Darwin award.
We're all adults here, some of us don't need annoying chimes to get the point across.
With that being said, I hope this post is able to help someone. I know I've had enough of being clowned on in my friend group for having the "beep-bloop car" lol