Might be a slightly dumb question, but...

I have a 2007 Toyota Camry LE (which I love). My question is why does Toyota not allow rearfacing children's carseats to touch the back of the front passenger seat? I have my son's Radian XTSL installed behind the passenger seat, and I have the passenger seat set as far forward as it can go. This way there is no contact between the seats. In fact there is almost 2 inches of space between them. However it does not matter if the seat is far forward, because 95% of the time, nobody sits in that seat anyway. Thanks in advance. :thumbsup:

Newer cars with advanced air bags have sensors in the legs of the seat. When something pushes on the back of the seat, it can affect the sensors' reading, making it seem like there is more or less weight in the seat itself.

Not a dumb question at all, by the way.

Your vehicle has advanced frontal airbags. The computer in the car determines whether or not to deploy the airbag, and if so, how hard to deploy it. To make that decision, the computer takes information from the crash sensors, the seatbelt sensor, and weight sensors in the front seat. The computer needs to know how hard the crash is, whether the front passenger is wearing their seatbelt, and if that front passenger might be a child or small adult. In your Toyota, bracing the carseat against the vehicle seat will feed false information to the computer.

In most cases it's due to advanced air bags. If a child restraint puts pressure on the seat in front, it can mess with the sensors for the torso air bag (if there is one) or for the front air bag. Driver's seats usually don't have weight or out of position sensors like passenger seats do (since there shouldn't be a child or someone sleeping against the door in the driver's seat! ) so it's not unusual to have the restriction for the passenger seat only. Although some manufacturers put a blanket "can't touch any of the front seats" and I'm not sure if that's just to be consistent or if there's something else going on with the driver's seats in those vehicles.

ETA: and cross posting with everyone ahead of me!

Thank you all. I didn't know about the airbag sensors. I'm so naive about things sometimes.

JMacSanDiego said:

Thank you all. I didn't know about the airbag sensors. I'm so naive about things sometimes.

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No, really, that's pretty esoteric stuff. I wouldn't expect the average parent (or even most technicians, for that matter) to know that.

If you can move him to the center, you can get a more upright Radian install in the center, which should allow you to make the front seat a little further back or more upright. Toyotas have funny contours a lot of the time and that center hump tends to help get the Radian more upright (though the seatbelt install can be a joy. You'll need to twist the buckle stalk down.)

Also, you don't need 2 inches' clearance; if you're able to get a teeny tiny gap, even just enough to slip a piece of paper through, you're good. :thumbsup: Sitting the front seat more upright will also allow you to move it back a bit further in most cases (and is safer for the passenger in the front seat when there is one, as it is safest to be as upright as possible. It's also safer for you, the driver to sit as upright as you can tolerate!)

No I think he's ok on the side. Besides the semi-high hump of the back middle seat tends to annoy the heck out of me. And you're right, the seatbelt install (for the center seat) would be a pain-in-the-neck. This is how apart the front seat and the carseat are when my son is in the seat. It's about an inch or so:

So my question is, does it matter if no one ever sits there? In my car we never have a passenger. I could care less if my airbag deploys too forcefully in an accident if no one is there. So can they touch then? If you have a tall driver, and two RFers there are very few times you can actually make it work to not have a RFing seat touch a front seat, KWIM? So far I've done the best I can. *If* someone sat there it would be my giant tall husband and I guess I'm not too worried about the airblag deploying too forcefully at him since he's a big adult and wears a seatbelt. Not to mention, my other option is have him eating the dashboard to make sure the seats don't touch, which I would think is MORE risk from the airbag than touching and possibly screwing up a sensor and having it deploy more forcefully and he's back a safe distance, KWIM?

So in that jumble, I guess my question is, if no one sits there does it matter? And even if someone does sit there and it's a full grown adult man who is belted and a proper distance from the dash, isn't that better than making sure the seat doesn't touch the car seat and he is eating the dash when the thing goes off?

I've always wondered and never asked. I have no clue if my car even warns against it, I just know it has advance airbags and I assumed they couldn't touch and have done my best to accomplish that

If no one sits there, you're on the right track -- it doesn't matter if it goes off correctly, too forcefully, or not at all. There's no passenger to protect.

But if your DH sits there, I believe the real danger would be that the airbag wouldn't deploy at all. All we know is that it 'intereferes,' which means that it could deploy correctly, with too much force, or just not deploy. THAT would be quite problematic for him.

I guess I'm lucky that nobody ever really sits in the front seat of my car. They'd have very little leg room anyway with how far forward the seat setting is. I think that it would not be too good to have them sit so close to the airbag anyway. When I do have passengers, they sit in the back.

Carrie_R said:

But if your DH sits there, I believe the real danger would be that the airbag wouldn't deploy at all. All we know is that it 'intereferes,' which means that it could deploy correctly, with too much force, or just not deploy. THAT would be quite problematic for him.

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In my tech course (in Canada) there was an off-the-cuff remark made by someone that is actually involved in investigating collisions that we have airbags in Canada because Americans don't wear seat belts. I've never investigated beyond the brief conversation that took place after that remark, but the gist of it was that if you wear your seat belt you don't really need the airbag. :shrug-shoulders:

Airbags were originally designed as a substitute for seatbelts. Then seatbelt laws came in and airbag development was slowed to pretty much a standstill-- until someone realized that even WITH seatbelts airbags could be beneficial. Eventually they were developed to what we have now.

Studies have been done that show that either a lap/shoulder belt OR an airbag does provide some protection, but the two working together provide the BEST protection.

We had a whole long class on airbags at KIM, it was quite interesting.