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Page 8 of 9 What to Avoid When Buying a New Car Certain features in the backseat make installing car seats more difficult or at times, impossible. We've outlined a few of these issues to help you decide if the car you're considering is the right one for you. The Disappearing Middle Seat Make sure the center of your vehicle's back seat is big enough to fit a car seat! Why?
 2010 Honda Accord, Center: 15 inches wideThis is a normal backseat capable of fitting a car seat or normal sized person's bottom.  Getting Narrower 2010 BMW X5, Center: 9.5 inches "wide" This center seat also features a fixed and angled head, which prevents you from fitting a car seat flush against the vehicle seat.  And Narrower....2010 Infitiniti EX35, Center: 9 inches "wide" Note the dual hinges on either side of the center console. Car seats do not install well up against hinges like these.  And Even Narrower....2010 Nissan Cube, Center: 8 inches "wide" Note that the seat belt buckle is 5 inches away from the seat bight (where the vehicle seat and back meet). This makes it especially difficult to install a car seat in this position (if you can find one that fits in such a tiny space)  It's Almost Gone! 2010 Toyota Highlander, Center: about 6 inches "wide" (we didn't measure it) It hurts your bottom just thinking about sitting here!
 Gone! 2010 Mini Cooper Countryman: No middle seat at all! Finally, a wise decision - if you don't have room for a center seat, don't tease us with 8 inches of a seat that is unusable for a car seat or a human body
 Hinges In order to install a car seat properly, you need to sink it down and back into the vehicle's seat cushion. Rigid structures like metal hinges and the plastic covers for them prevent the car seat from sinking into the seat cushion, leaving you with a loosely installed car seat--and an unsafe child. This photo shows a 2010 Toyota RAV-4. Check out all the hinges in the center seat!  The RAV-4 is supposed to be a family car. But as you might suspect from this close-up of the center seat, it's a disaster for car seat installation (and for an adult's bottom too!!).
Humps  Humps are usually found on the bottom cushion of the center seat. We say there's a hump when the center seat is raised up higher than the two side seats. A hump can make the center seat 4 inches higher than the side seats! Generally the foam under the center hump is more rigid than the foam under the side seats' cushions, and is not sculpted, which means that when you try to install the child safety seat in the center you need to use more muscle. It's harder to compress a rigid and unscuplted hump, and this is one reason why it's hard to install a car seat in the center position of many vehicles.Some humps are off center from where the LATCH system's lower anchors or the vehicle's seat belt is located. We installed a Combi Coccoro on the passenger side of a 2010 Lincoln MKS, as shown in this photo. The MKS has a hump in the center seat, and the lower anchors for the side seat are half on the side and half into the center seat. With the car seat sitting half on the hump in the center and half off the hump, you end up with a car seat that looks drunk!  While most humps are on the bottom cushion of the vehicle seat, some are on the back cushion, which further pushes the car seat forward and prevents it from sinking into the vehicle's seat cushion. Look at how the side humps protrude from the center of this 2010 Nissan Maxima! It would be difficult to install many car seats in this center position, and it also looks uncomfortable for an adult! |
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