2013 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA HYBRID Owners Manual

x If you smell an odor, immediately shut off seat heating and have it checked by an
authorized Volkswagen dealer or authorized Volkswagen Service Facility.
x Never install leather upholstery on a vehicle with seat heating that originally had cloth
upholstery. The seat heating elements for seats with cloth seats will overheat if the cloth
upholstery is replaced with leather upholstery.
Switch off seat heating when it is not needed to help reduce unnecessary fuel consumption.

Safety belts

WARNING
Not wearing a safety belt or wearing an improperly positioned safety belt increases the risk
of severe personal injury or death. Safety belts offer optimum protection only when they are
used properly.
x Properly worn safety belts are the single most effective means of reducing the risk of
serious injury and death in a collision or other accident. For this reason, always wear your
safety belt properly and make sure all passengers wear their safety belts properly as well
whenever the vehicle is moving.
x The driver must always make sure that every person in the vehicle is properly seated on a
seat of his or her own, properly fastens the safety belts belonging to that seat before the
vehicle starts to move, and keeps the belts properly fastened while riding in the vehicle. This
applies even when just driving around town. Therefore, always wear your safety belts and
make sure that everybody in your vehicle is properly restrained.
x Always secure children in the vehicle with a restraint system appropriate for their age,
weight and height
x Always fasten safety belts correctly before driving off and make sure that all passengers
are properly restrained.
x Never attach the safety belt to the buckle of another seat. Attaching the safety belt to the
wrong buckle will reduce safety belt effectiveness and can cause serious personal injury.
x Never let any objects or liquids get into the safety belt latch and prevent it from working
properly.
x Never remove a safety belt while the vehicle is moving. Doing so will increase your risk of
being injured or killed.
x Never strap more than one person, including small children, into any single safety belt.
x Never let children or babies ride sitting on your lap, and never place a safety belt over a
child sitting on your lap.
x Never wear belts over rigid or breakable objects in or on your clothing, such as
eyeglasses, pens, keys, etc., as these may cause injury.
x Several layers of heavy clothing (such as a coat worn over top of a sports jacket) may
interfere with proper positioning of the safety belt and reduce the overall effectiveness of the
system.
x Never use comfort clips or devices that create slack in the shoulder belt. However, special
clips may be required for the correct use of some child restraint systems.
x Safety belts offer optimum protection only when the seat backrest is upright and belts are
correctly positioned on the body.

WARNING
Damage to safety belts reduces their overall effectiveness and increases the risk of serious
personal injury and death whenever the vehicle is being used.
x Never let safety belts become damaged by being caught in the door or seat hardware.
x Torn or frayed safety belts can tear, and damaged safety belt hardware can break in an
accident.
x Inspect belts regularly for damage. If webbing, bindings, buckles, or retractors are
damaged, have the belts replaced immediately with the correct replacement belts approved
by Volkswagen for your vehicle, model, and model year.
x Safety belts that were subject to stress in an accident and stretched must be replaced
with a correct, new safety belt, preferably by an authorized Volkswagen dealer or authorized
Volkswagen Service Facility.
x Replacement after a crash may be necessary even if a safety belt shows no visible
damage. Anchorages that have been loaded must also be inspected.
x Damaged safety belts must be replaced; they cannot be repaired.
x Never try to repair a damaged safety belt yourself. Never remove or modify the safety
belts in any way.
x Have safety belts, bindings, retractors and buckles replaced by an authorized Volkswagen
dealer or authorized Volkswagen Service Facility.
x Always keep the belts clean. Dirty belts may not work correctly and can impair the
function of the inertia reel.
Warning light

Fig. 46 Warning light in the instrument cluster.

sooner if the driver buckles his or her safety belt. The warning light and the chime go out when both
driver and front passenger have bucked their safety belts.
If the driver and front seat passenger do not both fasten their safety belts within about 24 seconds
after the chime stops and the vehicle is moving at a speed of more than about 15 mph (25 km/h), the
chime will again sound for about 6 seconds, then go off for about 24 seconds, then sound again for
about another 6 seconds. The same thing happens if one of the safety belts is fastened and then
unfastened while the vehicle is moving. The safety belt warning light ª also flashes. The warning
chime continues to sound at 24 second intervals for up to 2 minutes. No chime sounds at speeds of
less than about 5 mph (8 km/h).
If the ignition is switched on, the safety belt warning light ª stays on until the driver and front
passenger have both buckled their safety belts.
WARNING
Not wearing a safety belt or wearing an improperly positioned safety belt increases the risk
of severe personal injury or death. Safety belts offer optimum protection only when used
correctly.
Frontal collisions and laws of physics

Fig. 47 A vehicle with passengers not wearing safety belts approaches a wall.

Fig. 48 A vehicle with passengers not wearing safety belts hits a wall.

Vehicle speed is the most significant factor. If your speed doubles (for example, from 15 mph to
30 mph – 25 km/h to 50 km/h), the energy increases 4 times!
Because the occupants of the vehicle in the above example are not using safety belts, they are not
“attached” to the vehicle. In a frontal collision, they will keep moving at the same speed the vehicle
was moving just before the crash, until something stops them - here, the inside of the passenger
compartment. Because the occupants of the vehicle in the example are not wearing safety belts, their
entire kinetic energy will be absorbed by impact with the wall ⇒ fig. 48.
The same principles apply to people in a vehicle that is in a frontal collision on the highway. Even at
city speeds of 20–30 mph (30–50 km/h), the forces acting on the body can reach one ton (2,000 lbs or
1,000 kg) or more. At greater speeds, these forces are even higher.
Of course, the laws of physics don't apply just to frontal collisions; they determine what happens in all
kinds of accidents and collisions.
What happens to passengers not wearing a safety belt

Fig. 49 The unbelted driver is thrown forward.

Fig. 50 Unbelted passengers in the rear seats are thrown forward on top of the belted driver.

Never rely on airbags alone for protection. Even when they deploy, airbags provide only additional
protection. Airbags are not supposed to deploy in all kinds of accidents. Even if your vehicle is
equipped with airbags, all vehicle occupants, including the driver, must wear safety belts correctly in
order to minimize the risk of severe injury or death in a crash, regardless of whether a seating position
has an airbag or not.
An airbag will deploy only once. Safety belts are always there to offer protection in those accidents in
which airbags are not supposed to deploy or when they have already deployed. Unbelted occupants
can also be thrown out of the vehicle, causing even more severe injuries or death.
It is also important for occupants in the rear seats to wear their safety belts properly since they can be
thrown violently forward through the vehicle in the event of an accident. Unbelted passengers in the
rear seats endanger not only themselves but also the driver and other passengers in the vehicle
⇒ fig. 50.
Safety belts protect

Fig. 51 Belted driver secured by the correctly worn safety belt in the event of a sudden braking maneuver.

So always wear your safety belt and make sure that everybody in your vehicle is properly restrained!
Using safety belts