[freddyford]

Whilst opening the tray that sits under the front passenger seat, my fingers slipped off the smooth piece of plastic that you have to push upwards to release the catch on this tray. Three of my fingers became trapped between the 'release' button and the side of the slot it sits in. The spring behind the release meant my fingers could not be released. Apart from being very painful, I am sorry to say a little bit of panic set in. It was impossible to get my other hand to try and release the fingers. After what seemed an eternity. I eventually managed to pull one finger at a time out of the trap. One finger has damage under the nail so the pressure on the fingers was quite considerable. It took all day for the swelling and pain to go I have looked the the arrangement again, very carefully this time to see if I could see what had happened. But I cannot see how it happened, perhaps I put too much pressure on the release pad pushing it past it's design position. My concern is if a Lady or Child with smaller fingers ended up in the same situation it would not be funny.
Apart from taking the seat out, if fingers got trapped it might be a fire brigade job to release them.




It is strange that it is often the small things that cause most problems.

 

[colinJYD]

Well I have solved that in my Ecosport, as i do not have the tray, being a base model

Well worth trying to figure out how that 'trap' happened and solving it, even if it means taking a junior hacksaw to the plastic .

Small design faults can be disastrous, as my following examples.....

1....My Ford Escort had holes at the back of the steering wheel spokes, just big enough for a finger to go in, and of course I did that while turning a corner and steering wheel got jambed with said finger, so it was a case of instant stopping or snap my finger off (I do still have all 10)....

(The holes were for screws but you would have though Ford would have put blanking plugs in the holes to prevent this)

2....Again another Ford, a Ford Cortina, and the interior door handle trim had sprayed on chrome, which after a few years came off in slithers, and went right into my finger like a syringe, with blood everywhere :|

2...I could go on >

Yep, the small design faults do hurt.

 

[freddyford]

The tray slides out from under the front passenger seat. The release button is set in a recess and short of taking the tray out there is no access. I cannot do anything to the car as it is owned by Motability and so I can either write a report to them or just be extremely careful when using the drawer. Whilst it is quite clever it does not open very far and so it's use is limited to things like first aid kit and such that does not require frequent access.

Cars are full of little traps. Many years ago when a mechanic I was forever cutting my hands on those nice edges of steel where they were stamped out and conveniently placed to do unwanted surgery.
My lasting memory was my younger Brother in Laws Morris 10. As usual I was called upon to fix it. One day, when working on the exhaust the clamp dropped down under the starter motor. Of course in those days the battery feed to the starter was a live cable to a terminal on the o/s of the starter motor and as I put my hand under the starter motor to retrieve the clamp my metal watch strap did a nice job of making a contact tween live feed and a convenient earth. I was first aware when said Brother in Law started jumping up and down pointing to the flashes. Strangely I have beautiful 50 pence size scar on my wrist but the watch never stopped.