Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Proud owner of a 2008 Quad Cab Big Horn. I've been a mopar guy my whole life and finally own a HEMI! Giddyup! Quick question for the masses, I did a search and it said no results (find that hard to believe), I have a 1 year old and am currently riding him in his car seat behind the passenger which doesn't leave much room up front. I would like to put him in the middle but that seat is much shorter (why?). I've read that as long as 80% of the car seat is on the seat it should be fine. Also my truck doesn't have the latches behind the middle seat (why?) and I don't think I can use the inside latches from the outside seats safely. Maybe will have to use the belt to tether him in the middle. How do you folks with babes handle this situ? (He's rear facing btw).
Thank you in advance for you replies.
Haven’t had to put rear-facing in my truck yet, but will soon and heard of it/seen pictures of people with rear-facing seats in the middle. Either way, I’ve heard that the anchors are only good up until kids are 30 lbs before you should be using the tether anyways. I’ll see if I can find the article. Definitely don’t wanna use the outside seat’s anchors tho, they are made for straight line forces and at an angle you would diminish their effectiveness.
I was wrong. Car manufacturers wont test the lower anchors on anything more than 65 lbs. (If kid and car seat weigh more than 65 lbs it’s not tested at all except with seat belt).
https://csftl.org/whats-the-deal-with-weight-limits/
This second link basically says for the shallow seats, just make sure to follow what the car seat manufacturer says is ok. If they say 80% is ok? Then you’re golden. If no, I bet if it had one of those upper tethers you could find a way to pull the tether over baby and connect it by the back window? It would look weird to have the tether over your baby, but that could help negate the fact that you’re missing 20% of the seat below the car seat? Just a thought.
https://csftl.org/trucks-and-car-seats/
I personally probably would just put the car seat in there and use the seatbelt. Another idea could be to buy some 2x4 and plywood and measure the distance from the floor to the top of the seat cushion. Should only cost about $2 in supplies. Build a little platform that will fill in the gap of the seat. Just a thought. I might have to do this in the future.