My Como loosens after every trip. Help?

[diaperjoys]

We just purchased a Como yesterday. It took some wrestling, but I got an acceptable install with a lap/shoulder belt. Locked the belt AND lockoff. By the time we got home the whole thing was loose. It happened again with the next short trip.

A Roundabout in the same location is a rock-solid installation. The whole car shakes, but the seat won't budge. The Como is tippy at best. i.e., I can get it tight at the belt path, but if I take ahold of it at shoulder level and apply a back and forth pressure, it just loosens itself.

Is this just a bad seat for my car? Or is there something else I can do? I'm taking the seat back if I can't get it solid - the best side impact protection in the world won't be worth a hill of beans if I can't get the seat in there correctly.

[snowbird25ca]

We just purchased a Como yesterday. It took some wrestling, but I got an acceptable install with a lap/shoulder belt. Locked the belt AND lockoff. By the time we got home the whole thing was loose. It happened again with the next short trip.

A Roundabout in the same location is a rock-solid installation. The whole car shakes, but the seat won't budge. The Como is tippy at best. i.e., I can get it tight at the belt path, but if I take ahold of it at shoulder level and apply a back and forth pressure, it just loosens itself.

Is this just a bad seat for my car? Or is there something else I can do? I'm taking the seat back if I can't get it solid - the best side impact protection in the world won't be worth a hill of beans if I can't get the seat in there correctly.

When you're checking for movement, you're only concerned about movement at the belt path. You should be checking with one hand where the seat belt feeds into the car seat, and looking for less than 1" of movement side to side or front to back along the vehicle seat.

The COMO has quite a tall shell, especially comparable to a RA, so I'd expect there to be a lot more movement up top, especially if it's not top tethered (assuming you have it installed ff'ing.)

When you say it's loosening, is it loosening so that the base of the car seat moves on the vehicle seat as well? When you open the lock-off, has there been some slack develop in the vehicle seat belt? Or are you talking specifically about the movement at the top of the seat itself?

I'm thinking from one of your other posts you have the COMO ff'ing, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

[diaperjoys]

When you say it's loosening, is it loosening so that the base of the car seat moves on the vehicle seat as well? When you open the lock-off, has there been some slack develop in the vehicle seat belt? Or are you talking specifically about the movement at the top of the seat itself?

After I've gotten the seat as tight as possible, it passes the "one hand at the belt path" test. But after it has worked itself loose the base then moves on the vehicle seat, and I can easily get more than an inch of motion...front to back, side to side. Not good.

I'm going to go out and try my Marathon (again) in that same seat. I'm sure I've had it there before with zero installation problems, so I'm thinking the difference is the seat, and not some odditiy with my belt or seating position.

Oh, and yes, I am doing a ff installation.

[snowbird25ca]

I posted on the other thread too, but thought I'd post it here too. You'd said you were tightening the seatbelt, closing the lock-off and then locking the belt, right?

From my read of the Como manual it looks like they want the belt locked, tightened up, then lock-off closed. I'm not sure if this will make a difference or not, but it's worth a try.