vent- I'm about the throw my car seats across my driveway

Kendrab2315 · Apr 10, 2011

Originally my ds (5) was FF outboard drivers side in a radian and my dd (almost 9 mon) was in the center RF in a myride. After looking in my manual and finding out my vehicle does not have tether anchors (but I can request the kits for free and nicely ask my mechanic neighbor to install them), I decided to play musical seats and basically swap my kids.

That seemed really easy until I actually started doing it and now I am beyond frustrated with my car seats not installed and a 5 year old who has to go to school in the morning. Should I just put them back to where they were?

Car seats already stress me out knowing the misuse percentage is so high, and now I feel even worse not being able to make sure my kiddos are in the safest positions possible for our current vehicle.

I just needed to take a break and vent before I try again

An Aurora · Apr 10, 2011

Until you can get the tether anchor installed, rest assured the Radian performs very well without the tether

rachelandtyke · Apr 10, 2011

An Aurora said:
Until you can get the tether anchor installed, rest assured the Radian performs very well without the tether

:yeahthat: My first thought was at least it's a Radian.

andre149 · Apr 10, 2011

I would put them back the way they were, get a tether anchor installed (or 2 if you plan on having this vehicle in a couple of years when your youngest goes ff) , and have them checked by a tech

Kendrab2315 · Apr 10, 2011

Right after I posted this I went back outside and played with my seats. Apparently my break helped because I *think* I have it (after a total of almost two hours total. ugh!) Neither seat will move AT ALL. This time I installed the radian first, then the myride; apparently I should have tried that from the beginning lol. I'm just not sure about a few things. The seat belt (radian) no matter what I do, bunches. It's not twisted at all, just not flat? Please please please tell me this is okay! Second- it appears that the myride is kind of tilting. It did this when I installed it before having the radian installed, too. Is this okay? Once again, please tell me it is lol. Is it because of how tight the seat belt is? You can see in the picture that it is kind of "pushing" the seat.

I've never put the myride NOT in the center, so I don't even know if I have this right!

I'm attaching pics of what I am trying to explain.

ETA- how the heck do I attach pics?! Today is just not my day

rachelandtyke · Apr 10, 2011

I insert pictures by loading them into photobucket and then inserting them with the IMG code.

Pixels · Apr 10, 2011

Bunching is fine, and tilting is fine as long as the base of the seat stays in contact with the vehicle seat.

Did you check to see if the seats are independently installed?

Kyras_Mama · Apr 10, 2011

Our myride always looks like it's leaning a little bit to me in our car, no idea why. Even when it's installed with latch like it is right now.

Kendrab2315 · Apr 10, 2011

Thanks for your replies. I actually just spent another hour messing with these seats due to the fact that when I read my myride manual the first time I missed something extremely important

and needed to fix it. I'm in tears right now over all of this car seat stuff.

My seats are independently tight. The don't even really touch- just the fabric of them does and I'm happy to say that neither of them moves even the slightest bit AT ALL.

I am in the process of hopefully meeting up with a tech in my area soon. We were supposed to meet up today but I'm not sure what happened. I feel pretty confident with my seats right now, but I also felt confident yesterday and now I know that I was doing something wrong

I can only imagine what else I'm doing wrong.

ETA- is there a class that someone can take aside from a class to become a tech? I read these forums every night and have learned A LOT, but I think it would be great to be able to take some sort of class as well. I'm originally from up North and the driving is way different here in FL and I am just so paranoid of something happening to my littles. I was in a car accident last June (while pregnant with my dd) and that just added to my car anxiety.

Pixels · Apr 10, 2011

I'm curious about what you missed on the MyRide. Care to share, so that others might learn from your mistake?

If you can figure out how to post pictures, we can take a look and tell you if there's anything we can spot.

Kendrab2315 · Apr 10, 2011

And another question (I'm so sorry for all my questions)- is it okay that the radian is not flush with the seat back? The pictures in the manual look exactly how my seat is. Like I said in my last post, this seat does not move AT ALL, it's just not allllll the way up against the back at the bottom. The top of the seat is, though... Thanks again.

Kendrab2315 · Apr 10, 2011

Pixels said:
I'm curious about what you missed on the MyRide. Care to share, so that others might learn from your mistake?

If you can figure out how to post pictures, we can take a look and tell you if there's anything we can spot.

It was the adjustments with the splitter plate underneath. I don't know HOW I missed that there were different settings and I had been realizing that it was difficult to adjust her straps (but never actually needed to) when she was in her seat. When I adjusted and put them where they belong, it made a crazy difference

I'm not sure how "severe" my mess up was, but it seems like a huge deal. Thankfully she just started recently being in the car more and wasn't in the car a lot prior to these past two weeks.

This is what happens when I read through the manual quickly after a day out (son's birthday) two days before Christmas.

I'm going to upload pics to photobucket and post them here. All I really took pics of was the bunching and the tilt of dd's seat, though.

I will gladly go back outside with my camera and take any pics necessary if you could tell me what I should take them of!

In this pic you can see where the seats are "touching" (and my cool 5 year old who's dirty from playing outside while I battle seats lol)

This is what the tilt looked like before but when I took it out to fix my harness it's a lottt more straight. Would this have been okay, though?

Kendrab2315 · Apr 11, 2011

One more question (i swear I think this is my last one)... I have a longer crotch strap on the way from SK... can someone tell me how to swap out the straps without taking the seat out?

Thankssss!

Pixels · Apr 11, 2011

Tunnel your hand into the rear facing belt path. Grab the metal plate that is on the end of the crotch strap, turn it sideways, and feed it up through the slot. I find that I have to think of it as three steps: through the plastic shell, through the memory foam, then finally through the cover. It often gets hung up at each step along the way.

It looks like the kids' harnesses might be too tight, especially your 5yo's (but that might be because his shoulders are up).

Kendrab2315 · Apr 11, 2011

Pixels said:
Tunnel your hand into the rear facing belt path. Grab the metal plate that is on the end of the crotch strap, turn it sideways, and feed it up through the slot. I find that I have to think of it as three steps: through the plastic shell, through the memory foam, then finally through the cover. It often gets hung up at each step along the way.

It looks like the kids' harnesses might be too tight, especially your 5yo's (but that might be because his shoulders are up).

Thank you. I'm really hoping I'll be able to get the strap out and changed without taking the seat out.

How do I know if the straps are too tight vs too loose? I didn't think there was such a thing as too tight

I don't have to "force" either of them if that matters?... my son complains of the crotch strap squishing his privates which is why I called SK so I hope that solves it. It happens even when I loosen the straps to the point of being able to "pinch" the harness.

Thank you for all your help!!

rachelandtyke · Apr 11, 2011

I usually pull the adjustor strap until it's snug, then pull up the release lever and that lets out just a tiny bit of the tension, but makes a big difference as to how it feels for the child. When DD says it's too tight, I don't actually have to loosen and retighten. When I just lift up the release, it lets out just enough and she says it's perfect and I still can't pinch at the shoulders.

Kendrab2315 · Apr 11, 2011

rachelandtyke said:
I usually pull the adjustor strap until it's snug, then pull up the release lever and that lets out just a tiny bit of the tension, but makes a big difference as to how it feels for the child. When DD says it's too tight, I don't actually have to loosen and retighten. When I just lift up the release, it lets out just enough and she says it's perfect and I still can't pinch at the shoulders.

I will try that with both kids when I leave to pick my son up from school. Thanks for the tip

mommycat · Apr 11, 2011

I do that too - I actually don't loosen between trips but if I have snugged the seat down to t-shirt level on a warm day and then he has a thicker shirt the next day (and then accounting for that "taller in the mornign phenomenon), I will do up the harness with it super-tight then lift the release to "decompress" the child. It slides out just enough so there is no extra pressure but not enough to be too loose (I do check afterwards).

When you are putting in the MyRide, try to feed the slack into the retractor as you are pushing down on the seat, and don't try to do any more after you release the pressure. You need to get the slack out of the lap section but you don't need the whole thing to be bowstring taut. It is ok to have the seats move up to an inch - if you can get it in so it just barely moves without a tilt or so it cannot move at all with a tilt, I might just go with a very slightly looser install and avoid the tipping. A slight tilt is not unsafe but it can be a bit annoying, and I also think that as you drive over time it might make the whole seat tip up even more and more as the retractor potentially eats the belt click by click. Keep an eye on your install over time. In our truck, the seatbelt geometry seems to be such that most RF seats end up tipping badly after a short time and lifting off the seat - I have usually solved this by using a locking clip. I would avoid this unless the tipping is pretty bad and turns into a chronic problem, though.

Kendrab2315 · Apr 11, 2011

mommycat said:
I do that too - I actually don't loosen between trips but if I have snugged the seat down to t-shirt level on a warm day and then he has a thicker shirt the next day (and then accounting for that "taller in the mornign phenomenon), I will do up the harness with it super-tight then lift the release to "decompress" the child. It slides out just enough so there is no extra pressure but not enough to be too loose (I do check afterwards).

When you are putting in the MyRide, try to feed the slack into the retractor as you are pushing down on the seat, and don't try to do any more after you release the pressure. You need to get the slack out of the lap section but you don't need the whole thing to be bowstring taut. It is ok to have the seats move up to an inch - if you can get it in so it just barely moves without a tilt or so it cannot move at all with a tilt, I might just go with a very slightly looser install and avoid the tipping. A slight tilt is not unsafe but it can be a bit annoying, and I also think that as you drive over time it might make the whole seat tip up even more and more as the retractor potentially eats the belt click by click. Keep an eye on your install over time. In our truck, the seatbelt geometry seems to be such that most RF seats end up tipping badly after a short time and lifting off the seat - I have usually solved this by using a locking clip. I would avoid this unless the tipping is pretty bad and turns into a chronic problem, though.

Thanks!! When I had to take the myride out again yesterday to fix my mistake, when I put it back in it wasn't tipping at all and both seats are independently tight. That's the first time since I got the seat in December that I had it installed without the tilt. I really hope I have everything right this time as yesterday was really upsetting for me (and my scraped up knuckles keep reminding me!!) and it scares me so much that I'm still doing something wrong!

I still need to bring my nephew's seat out to my car and see if it will fit and if I can get it installed correctly but I'll save that for another day. If I can't, I can't and we'll just play in the yard when I watch him twice a month instead of going to the park!! lol

mommycat · Apr 11, 2011

You're doing great. You are putting in the effort, which means so much. You have a couple of super cute kids, and they are lucky to have such a dedicated mommy.

BTW, LOVE the baby fingers and toes in the MR side pic. What is it about baby feet that is so darned cute?

vent- I'm about the throw my car seats across my driveway

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