Regent and Honda Odyssey

[Momto2whosews]

Forgive me for being MIA for so long..

I have a friend who is interested in getting her 5 year old back into a 5 point harness and she wants a Regent. But she has an '06 Honda Odyessy. I've done some searches and the consensus is mixed. Will it fit with the new installation advisory or won't it? He's over 40 lbs, so she needs to use the SBP.

Since she lives a few states away from me, I actually took my Regent down to the Honda dealership today to try it out. They had an '08 on the lot which the salesman assured me is essentially the same as her '06. I got it to work, but have one question.

Because of the forward-of-the-bight buckles, where does the buckle go in relation to the recline bar? I wish I'd thought to bring my camera, because I can't remember if I put the belt through the recline bar or outside of it. I think it was outside. I guess I could call Britax on this.

So, in order to get it to work I had to recline the captains' chair, remove the headrest, get everything tight and then put the seat back upright. It wasn't easy, but when has installing a Regent been a "piece of cake"?

I didn't try the center position of the 3rd row, but that is an option for her too. Has anyone had success there?

[Defrost]

Look up the Regent manual at Britaxusa.com and double-check, but I am almost certain that the seat belt does NOT go through the recline bar with seat belt installs. That's just a LATCH thing.

[Chex]

I have an '05 Ody and I've got my Husky installed using the SBP and the recline bar in the outboard passenger side in the 3rd row. '05 was the year they only put one TA in the back, so I have it attached to that even though it's slightly off-center (it's in between the outboard and middle seats). And I got a great fit. Like you said, they're never super easy to install, but I didn't have too hard of a time, and it's rock solid! I'm not sure how it would work in the middle seat on the 3rd row just because that's the funky seatbelt that comes out of the ceiling and both sides of that seatbelt might be too close together (under the Regent) to get a really good fit. But LATCH might work if her child is small enough.


-Ann