Thank you for your replies.
When I get in my car, the seat belt reminder chime does make any noise. I am wondering if it's not activated/ turned on?
That sounds like a glitch, which could be either trivial or dangerous.
The problem might be a short or maladjustment in the module that detects whether the seat belt is fastened. The car thinks the seatbelt is always fastened, and sends no error signal to the computer. That's the trivial problem.
A more serious problem is that a disconnect has occurred between the seat occupant sensor and the computer. The computer may not know that you are sitting in the seat, either because the sensor failed and the computer doesn't realize it, or there's a software glitch that leads the computer to disregard what the sensor is telling it.
Software or sensor, this has some scary implications; if the computer doesn't think that there is somebody in the driver's seat,
in a crash, will it not fire the airbags? The passenger airbag (I believe) will not fire if the passenger is below a certain weight in order to avoid injuring the passenger. I don't know if the same logic applies to the driver's side airbag, but if it does then you might not have airbag protection.
Are you small in stature? Small enough that a slightly maladjusted weight sensor would deem you below the activation threshold for the seat belt warning / airbags?
You should have it checked out. I hate those stupid seat belt chimes, but the lack of one on your car could indicate a serious safety issue.
