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2nd row Captains Chairs and Rear Facing carseat HELP!!!!

28K views 28 replies 12 participants last post by  coloradoGM 
#1 ·
Hi!

I just tried to install our Britax Roundabout into our 2007 Acadia, 2nd row w/Captains chairs. The carseat manual states that the carseat has to be at a 45degree angle and I cannot get it to this angle because the seat is not flat. Has anyone else had this problem when installing a rear facing convertible carseat? I have the seat back reclined all the way and the seat bottom will not go flat for a correct install. If you have the Cpts chairs, do you know what I'm trying to describe about the seats not being "flat?" The carseat manual says if its not at the correct angle to put a rolled up towel in the crease but this doesn't work because it pushes the base of the carseat back up onto the higher part of the seat.

We did not have a problem when my daughter was in her infant seat because I was able to adjust the base of it. When we bought the car my son was already forward facing.

PLEASE HELP!!!
 
#2 ·
Sue0213 said:
Hi!

The carseat manual says if its not at the correct angle to put a rolled up towel in the crease but this doesn't work because it pushes the base of the carseat back up onto the higher part of the seat.
Using the rolled towel works fine in my 2nd row. I'm not sure I understand what "up onto the higher part of the seat" means?? ??? ??? A picture would help. :thumb:
 
#5 ·
Sue0213 said:
What car seat do you have? Does anyone have the Roundabout? I solved the level problem (with a towel) but now I'm having an issue with the base of the car seat and the LATCH anchors.
What is the problem with the latch anchors?
 
#6 ·
There's nothing physically wrong with the LATCH anchors. The problem I'm having is when I attach the car seats LATCH straps to the anchors they do not go on either side of the car seat (so that the car seat is in the middle of the 2 LATCH straps). The front base of the car seat is a little bit wider so it is not allowing the LATCH straps to get tight enough because they are hitting the front sides of the base (the straps are infront of the car seat rather than on either side of the car seat). Does that make sense? If the LATCH anchors were about 1/2" closer to the outsides of the seat it would be fine. I installed my infant seat because I needed a car seat or I would take pictures.

I'm going to take it to my local police department and see if they can install it. I will probably have to use the lap belt (and prop it up on pool noodles) instead of the LATCH anchors. I'd rather use the LATCH but it doesn't seem like it's going to be possible with my car seat.

I'm extremely frustrated. My son was already in a forward facing car seat when we bought the Acadia and it never occurred to me to try the car seat rear facing.
 
#7 ·
Sue0213 said:
There's nothing physically wrong with the LATCH anchors.

I'm extremely frustrated. My son was already in a forward facing car seat when we bought the Acadia and it never occurred to me to try the car seat rear facing.

I would buy a different carseat.
Why are you going back to rear facing, if he was already forward facing?
 
#8 ·
We have the roundabout as well. Honestly, my husband & i can't remember if we had it rear facing when we bought the acadia or if we had turned our DD around by then.

BUT .. a few things. Use the noodle (or towel), recline the seat slightly to allow more room for the base (this will be even more important when you turn it around), and finally, if the seat installs correctly with the belt, then it is safe & can be used. Take a deep breath & use it that way. I'm sure the police station will tell you the same thing.

Bonk - respectfully, I would not recommend someone throw away $150. Also, it is proven that it is safer for children to face rear than forward, and many parents chose to leave their child rear-facing for longer than the required 1 year.
 
#9 ·
caitlinS9 said:
Bonk - respectfully, I would not recommend someone throw away $150. Also, it is proven that it is safer for children to face rear than forward, and many parents chose to leave their child rear-facing for longer than the required 1 year.
Anyone should throw away $150 if the seat is not fitting properly and it isn't safe.
She is the one that stated the seat was facing forward before,
If the kid doesn't fit in it then you shouldn't have it rear facing? We (you and I) don't know the weight or size of the kid, I was just asking the question, why is she going back to rear facing?
 
#10 ·
I personally don't recommend using anything (towels, swimming noodles, etc.) that are not called out in the owners manual of the seat and/or the car. I know our local fire department will help people with the proper install. I would seek help from a local place like that to ensure your child is really safe. I do know that there have been times that certain seats just won't work in certain cars. If that is the case it will be cheaper to replace the seat than the car. :)
 
#11 ·
I know our local fire department will help people with the proper install.
Are you sure about this? Because even up here in "don't sue everyone for every little thing" (canada) land, fire/police dept have stopped doing this because of the liability involved.

I've heard of "trained" professionals who will install the child car seats. But even those people being able to get all the different car seats into every make of car is a long shot.

I would google your location with child car seat install, and see what they recommend.

When I installed my rear facing in the Acadia, I was also having issues trying to get a certain line on the carseat level, til I read further in the manual that indicated that the line only needed to be level for new borns. Since my son was 5 months at the time and not a newborn by any means (age/weight/height), I ignored that line. I rolled up a towel and placed it on the seat and made sure to check it a couple time after. the seat is not going anywhere.

One other question. is there a removable base. My convertible child seat would not pull tight at all with the removable base. As soon as I removed it, the seat pulls really tight to the chair using LATCH. BTW, the removable base is not the type that stays in the car for the bucket seats, it's semi-permenantly on the chair.

Hope that helps.
 
#14 ·
It took us 4 different car seats before I was happy with the way it fit. And I would throw away 150 dollars before I put my child in a seat that wasn't installed properly. If you can afford to drive any car over 20k you should be able to go spend another 100-150 for a child seat.
 
#15 ·
coloradoGM - I agree. Although it is a pain to buy one, try it, take it back, try again, etc. etc. If I was to do it all over again, I would buy all 4 of them at one time, and then return the 3 I did not like. That would save me many trips and time waiting in the return lines.
 
#16 ·
coloradoGM said:
It took us 4 different car seats before I was happy with the way it fit. And I would throw away 150 dollars before I put my child in a seat that wasn't installed properly. If you can afford to drive any car over 20k you should be able to go spend another 100-150 for a child seat.
GAR said:
coloradoGM - I agree. Although it is a pain to buy one, try it, take it back, try again, etc. etc. If I was to do it all over again, I would buy all 4 of them at one time, and then return the 3 I did not like. That would save me many trips and time waiting in the return lines.
:cheers:
 
#17 ·
Well you could always do what I saw a group of 5 adults and two children; they we all trying to get into an Envoy (without 3rd row) so they put the two car seats with infants UNRESTRAINED in the cargo area and the five adults jumped in :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:.

I quickly called my buddy with Tucson PD and reported the license plate of the vehicle and location. He called back later to say they found the vehicle, pulled it over for a *minor infraction* and proceeded to arrest everyone in the vehicle. He never did say what happened to the two infants :angryfire: :angryfire:
 
#18 ·
jsimms said:
Well you could always do what I saw a group of 5 adults and two children; they we all trying to get into an Envoy (without 3rd row) so they put the two car seats with infants UNRESTRAINED in the cargo area and the five adults jumped in :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:.

I quickly called my buddy with Tucson PD and reported the license plate of the vehicle and location. He called back later to say they found the vehicle, pulled it over for a *minor infraction* and proceeded to arrest everyone in the vehicle. He never did say what happened to the two infants :angryfire: :angryfire:
That's awesome I wish I had a friend in the PD so I could do that. I could probably turn someone in every day.
 
#19 ·
GAR said:
coloradoGM - I agree. Although it is a pain to buy one, try it, take it back, try again, etc. etc. If I was to do it all over again, I would buy all 4 of them at one time, and then return the 3 I did not like. That would save me many trips and time waiting in the return lines.
I think the third time we went back we actually did buy two.
 
#20 ·
I just put a rear facing infant seat in 2 weeks ago. My base had adjustments to raise and lower the base. Not sure if it is the same seat (Britax). The hospital nurse inspected it and said it was good to go. I had no idea about the 45 degree angle issue. I will double check mine now.
 
#21 ·
jb_lambda said:
Are you sure about this? Because even up here in "don't sue everyone for every little thing" (Canada) land, fire/police dept have stopped doing this because of the liability involved.
I'll preface my comments with my life experiences in case anyone takes what I'm posting the wrong way:
1) As a little kid, I recall sleeping on the second row floor of a '62 Pontiac wagon in cold weather since it had an underseat heater. Child seats were unheard of. Statistics showed people died in car wrecks everyday.

2) I've not had a kid in child seat range for almost 20 years. I used as I recall two or three seats each for two kids over the years, and always installed them myself based on the instructions that came with them. When my kids were little, people died in car wrecks everyday. I even was in a wreck with one of them at age 5 in my '65 Corvair (missed a Buick that pulled into my lane and hit a stop sign instead). Despite only wearing lap belts, we were OK. As an aside, the Corvair got 4 wheel disk brakes and Chrysler Sebring seats w/ integrated shoulder belts after that incident. :)

The police agency I worked for before I retired had several sworn officers that did nothing but installing child seats. I thought then & still think now that is a waste of a sworn officer. When I was a squad supervisor, I was lucky to have three people to respond to calls for service in a county of 500K population. When I worked traffic homicide, people died in car wrecks in our county at a rate of about 100/year. That number went up as the population increased.

Don't these car seats come with illustrated instructions? I'd have to think the one that knows how they work best is the company that makes them. Why do people need to rely on the government to install a child seat?

This is another example of how over-extended the federal government has gotten IMO.

Summary
I'm not against using child seats, I just think this should be voluntarily 100% in the private sector w/o any governmental involvement. As for the original question, doesn't this seat have detailed installation instructions?

I saw a group of 5 adults and two children[/color]... He called back later to say they found the vehicle, pulled it over for a *minor infraction* and proceeded to arrest everyone in the vehicle[/color]. He never did say what happened to the two infants
Something sounds fishy there unless one or more of them had outstanding warrants unrelated to the reported violation. I've not read child neglect laws in AZ, but if 2 (each) of them were the parents/legally responsible of each of the children and both were charged, that's only a maximum of 4 people out of the 5 criminally liable.
 
#22 ·
Don't these car seats come with illustrated instructions? I'd have to think the one that knows how they work best is the company that makes them. Why do people need to rely on the government to install a child seat?
Yes they do come with very good instructions, the problem is that every car has different seats (i think that made sense). I noticed just recently that Volvo has been approved to make a child car seat specifically for their cars. I think this is the way it should be. Although the prices will be through the roof, but at least people know that the seat fits properly.

I agree with everything that you say. Except, it is law to have a proper car seat for a child while the vehicle is motion (at least in Canada), some people (not me) feel that they should be able to go to the local police station and find out if their car seat is installed properly. I feel there's way too many other things that a cop could be using their time for.
 
#23 ·
The fire department that I work for and many surrounding departments had department members (career/volunteer) that wanted to be trained by AAA in how to properly install child seats, the training was also done to certain police officers working out of the traffic safety division. They went through a fairly lengthy training class that covered different types of child seats, and how to install them as best as possible.

The departments would run Safety Child Seat Inspections The key is inspections!!!!! Not installations.
My wife was trained to do this, and they were told by the instructors that they are to show and assist the parent/owner of the seat how to install it, not necessarily do it for them They were just inspected to make sure that it was done properly. That way the parents would know how to do this. But as blue said, the Seat comes with instructions, and that is what should be used to install them, it isn't rocket science.

They were taught different methods of making sure that the seat was level and it would properly restrain a child when needed. They used the pool noodles and non slip fabric most of the time to make this happen. I don't believe the seat is allowed to move more then 1 inch when installed, if I remember correctly.
When I had my Envoy XUV I had to use a 3 in piece of PVC pipe under the base to get it to sit properly in the recommneded green zone on the level. It still wasn't as tight as I would have liked, so I used a ratcheting tie down as well to secure it furhter.
I have no problems in the Acadia with my childs seat, it faces forward and sits just fine. I have the Prince Lionheart seat protector, and use the 3 latches, and the seatbelt. Little slide at the stop, but the base doesn't move at all.

ON a side note, when my wife did these car seat installs she would get called at all times of the day by parents asking to schedule a time to have their seat inspected. My wife would usually schedule a time and have them stop by. One day she had a guy call demanding that she come to the hospital to install the seat. My wife was at her work and could not do it, and explained that to the guy. He continued to tell her his displeasure about the situation and then said that his wife JUST had the baby and they wanted to leave the hospital but the nurse wouldn't let them go until they checked the carseat to see if it was installed. My wife being kind didn't state the obvious here, but I would have asked the question.

Didn't you have 9 months of warning that you were going to need the seat installed?
 
#24 ·
OP - did you take the seat to be inspected? what did they say.

I'd like to repeat that a seat that installs CORRECTLY with the lap belt is perfectly safe & does not need to be replaced. The latch system is an option for install, not a requirement.
 
#26 ·
Providing information to tax payers on services available to them in their community?
YES! I looked over the list generated by a couple of ZIP codes. The install/inspect process is something the local/state governments (and in some cases private businesses :thumb:) are doing. Each of these places would tell you this if you asked and no doubt publish this info themselves. Like certain other functions, it is 100% redundant to what the state/local governments are doing. The money would be better "spent" by returning it no strings attached to the states or better yet not collecting it in the first place (economic stimulus :)).

I don't want to hijack/threadcrap. I should have added I have a huge axe to grind here due to having to pay 34% of my AGI in income taxes last year and a 10% "penalty" until age 60 due to discriminatory IRS rules.
 
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