OK. This has been coming for some time. Like, 3+ years.

Sometimes I want to disengage my seat belt. Examples: Rolling out of a parking lot where I'll need to stop and pay at the gate, need wallet. Also, when rounding my cul-de-sac, I back in to my driveway. I like to get the belt off and retracted prior to turning 180 and backing up. Sometimes Mrs. McGyver like to futz around with her purse and various whatevers in the roll out to the end of our 8 house street. But no. NOOOO! The freaking Nanny Camry starts bellyaching at you in an ever increasing, persistent LOUD-FRAKING-SKULL PIERCING-SOUND!

Oh yeah... then if you DO roll to a stop, the freaking thing is LOCKED ON AT FULL TILT until you comply with the previous seat belt command.

Not to mention, sometimes I *DO* open my door before pushing the off button. So what? Why do my neighbors have to know that at midnight. Jackass thing!

Catharsis is complete!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a 15 minute fix!

What's great is that you don't have to utterly destroy the device to teach it some manners. The demon box is inside the instrument cluster. 2 plastic poppers, 4+10 screws, 2 harness disconnects. 3 drops of superglue in the hole followed by a dusting of baking soda to catalyze the glue, and you end up with an instant, perfect solid plastic plug, shoved right down the throat of that maddening piezo piece from hell.

The result is approximately 95% attenuation of the offending sound. You still get warnings, but at a ~whisper~ not a SHOUT.

Please see the attached pictures, courtesy of my Blackberry. I have a few more, but the forum only allows five image uploads per post.

I am thrilled with the result. In case you were wondering, yes I paused before disconnecting the data buss wiring. The connection appears to be non-volatile, no error codes or faults. I only lost the trip efficiency data.

Tools required = 2 screwdrivers, 1 phillips for the fasteners, 1 slotted for the plastic tab locks and push rivets around the bezel.

 

Wow, I'm extremely impressed that you isolated the source of the news and muffled it. I totally agree with your sentiment on this beeper, which is why I had the dealer de-program it before I even took delivery. All they have to do is plug a laptop in with a cable under the steering wheel and navigate to a menu to turn it off.
Rest assured you're not the only person that likes to unhook his seat belt "prematurely."
Thanks for taking the time to post the hack.

 

Good job! I may have to do this. Two questions, though.

1: In the text you say "superglue", yet the bottle looks like Gorilla Glue. The two are chemically different, so it might matter as to the baking soda reaction.

2: Could you provide (or point to) some details as to how to remove the instrument cluster?

Again, great work, and thanks for sharing.

 

No Problem... you are very observant. Indeed the bottle of "super glue" is branded as "Gorilla Brand". but it is not the original Gorilla Glue. I believe that stuff is polyurethane based. This "super glue" is, in fact cyanoacrylate, with a thickening agent. So of course it reacts instantly with the bicarb and forms a perfect, solid lump.

The image upload limit kept me from showing the minor details, but it is extremely easy to take apart.

1. Lower the steering wheel all the way.

2. Locate the 2 plastic rivets holding the bezel, push in the center plug, lift and extract the plastic rivet, and recover the center plugs for re-use.

3. Rotate the bezel outward and away.

4. Remove the 4 P2 screws holding the cluster.

5. Rotate cluster out and away

6. Un-clip harness and remove 2 plugs from back of cluster, take cluster to work bench and lay it on a soft towel, face down.

6a. There are an assortment of white, sound deadening pads, that resemble diapers that are glued under the dash pad, above the cluster. They tend to fall down. May need to glue or tape them back up if fallen.

7. Remove 8 or 10 screws from back of cluster.

8. Use small slotted screw driver to release all the plastic lock tabs around periphery of the cluster.

9. Separate back of cluster and modify the piezo buzzer.

10. Reverse sequence to re-assemble.

I already tried to simply cover the back vent holes with duct tape. It does no good. That freaking piezo buzzer is designed to resonate withing the cluster itself, so that the noise is literally projected at your face. No, you have to get inside the cluster and kill it good.

 

Now that's what I call good old fashioned vigilante justice !!!

Imagining your frame of mind, I was visualizing Popeye turning red in the face and screaming,

"That's all I can stands; I can't STANDS no more !"

just before popping open his can of spinach and turning into a whirlwind of frenzied destruction.

Way to go !

 

You got it brother! One eye squinted down, veins bulging, and steam blowing out of my pipe.

The crowing blow... My boss called me as I was leaving a place and my seatbelt got folded over, in half, and jammed in the slide buckle. That freaking chime went off. And I had to dump my boss so I could power cycle the car to shut it the heck up.

One could hear 10,000 synapses exploding in an electrical frenzy at once. It was an epic moment.

 

Nice job McGyver, however, the owners manual does say (as userboy had done) that you can see your dealer to have this "feature" disabled.

What I like about your solution is that it is lower volume, as opposed to completely disabled.

 

Yes, but....it's PERMANENT, Changing a setting would allow for a future user to again change that setting to his/her preference. To each his own, as I am not bothered by the ding.

 

Actually, both dealers within a 15 miles radius of me refused to shut off the dinger citing "liability". Even if they would do it, any software mod is a 1.0 hour minimum charge.

I've also made the decision that this will be my last new car. The stress level and monthly payments are both too high. So I'll drive it till it dies. Whoever gets it after that will either not care, or just have to deal with it.