HELP! Rear-facing convertible car seat in front seat of truck?

My 7-month old son is about to grow out of his bucket seat (he's 21+lbs now) so we need to get a convertible car seat for him this month. Problem is, our station wagon is having some problems and we currently can't drive it. Our other vehicle is a truck (1999 Ford F-150) with no back seat.

My question: are there any convertible car seats that will go rear-facing in the front seat of a truck? I have tried to find one online, but so far, no luck

Any convertible should fit fine rf in the truck, you just need to deactivate the airbag using the switch it should have since it's a single cab.

How are they not fitting?

All of them should. I'd probably try to find something, though, that allowed tethering, since if there's no back seat that means the glass is right behind the headrest, right? Probably not too bad for a wee RFing baby, but as the child gets older I wouldn't want their faces to go anywhere near the glass in a collision. So I'd look for something with a tether (recardo, britax, sunshine kids). I'd also look for a tether spot in the truck. Britax normally discourages tethering to the seat the seat is sitting on, but I think in a truck it'd be a good plan.

Wendy

Well I looked on some websites that showed which car seats are compatible with which vehicles, but it didn't mention any rear-facing car seats for our truck... Also, wouldn't the car seat be in the way of the side mirror on the right? And another problem: you're supposed to scoot the seat forward so the seat touches the dashboard, right? But I would have to sit in the middle (DH drives, I don't), so how would that work???

where will you be installing it? middle or by the door? I have or had a message from Ford about that. I will look for it if you want it. Just e-mail me. swelch0320 at yahoo dot com.

I did a lot of truck research before we bought our crew cab Ford. We have a family of 6 and needed everyone to fit.

Stefanie

Irma Lisette said:

Well I looked on some websites that showed which car seats are compatible with which vehicles, but it didn't mention any rear-facing car seats for our truck... Also, wouldn't the car seat be in the way of the side mirror on the right? And another problem: you're supposed to scoot the seat forward so the seat touches the dashboard, right? But I would have to sit in the middle (DH drives, I don't), so how would that work???

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Are you talking about carseatdata.org? That only has entries that people have submitted, it's not inclusive at all. From experience, they will work. Honest.

You'd want the seat as far back as possible, not forward. Just in case the airbag disengage didn't work. But if you're in the middle then you just kind of have to compromise so that you can sit there as well. If it's just your DH and the baby, though, push that seat back.

Some seats like bracing, which is touching something in front of it, others actively discourage it. In a vehicle with a deactivated airbag I'd say no, push the seat back, just in case. You want the risk of the airbag as low as possible.

The mirror will likely be invisible. Your DH will have to make do with his driver and rearview, and then look over his shoulder or ask you to take a glance at that mirror. But if the seat is all the way back it may be visible just fine.

HTH

Wendy

I used a rear-facing Britax Marathon, Roundabout and Wizard in the front seat of my 2000 Ford Ranger. Not all the same time obviously. But they were used that way for 3.5 years.

Just make sure the passenger airbag(if there is one) is off and it should be okay. Though I highly recomend a seat w/side impact protection, like Britax Wizard or Boulevard.

And, as always from me, pictures: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/mommy2cias/car seat pictures/rf604.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/mommy2cias/car seat pictures/ciasEB.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/mommy2cias/car seat pictures/matruck1.jpg

Thanks girls! :thumbsup: There are just so many websites out there with information (some of which is contradicting!). I just didn't know where to look! I guess I've finally found the right place.

The 2 car seats I've been considering are the Britax Marathon or the cheaper alternative, the Fisher Price Safe Voyage Deluxe. I want the Britax, but I don't know if I'll be able to convince my hubby that it's worth the extra $100!

The reason they are telling you to scoot the seat forward is because unlike in the back seat of a car where the convertible would be braced against the soft front passenger seats, in a truck you typically have more space in the front, potentially leaving a large gap between the back of the restraint and the hard dashboard. In a frontal crash, the seat would travel through that gap and have a hard stop against the dash, so, the theory is it is safer to have it already against the dash to it rides down the crash with the vehicle instead of having that secondary collision against the dash.

I am not sure how much of that is theory, and how much is statistical data, so take it with a grain of salt.

The best place would be in the middle so you have a shoulderbelt....no one is safe in a lap belt only, they are only good for installing carseats. However, you can't install a rf restraint in the middle where there is a driver's airbag, which there almost certainly is. So, baby will have to go outboard rf, and only one parent should be in the vehicle at a time

Oh, and btw, the FPSVD is an excellent choice, BUT in this instance I would pay for the MA over the FPSVD for the rf tether since it's a single cab with the back glass so close, assuming you can find a suitable rf tether location. If you can't, then get the FPSVD.

In Scandinavia it's standard for RF kids (until 50# in appropriately sized seats) to be braced against the dashboard.

Ahzryn said:

Oh, and btw, the FPSVD is an excellent choice, BUT in this instance I would pay for the MA over the FPSVD for the rf tether since it's a single cab with the back glass so close, assuming you can find a suitable rf tether location. If you can't, then get the FPSVD.

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:yeahthat: That is exactly what I was going to say!

In this case, is it okay to tether to the seat upon which the restraint is installed? I'm not a CPST, so I am directing this question towards the CPSTs.

We have a '94 F150. We specifically saved up for the money just for the Britax just so we could have a seat that RF tethers for in his pickup. I do not want her rebounding into the glass window! And the RF tether prevents that (the FPSV doesn't have RF tether)
I wanted the seat installed in the middle, to keep her away from the doors and so that I could have a shoulder belt, but it was an absolute BEAR to install in the center. I actually ended up removing the RF lockoffs (btw, please don't do this w/o talking to Britax first) and even then it still took 2 people and half an hour to install it in the middle.
So if we had time, I installed it in the middle, but if we didn't have much time I just put it on the side (switchable retractor)
The only thing is that the switchable retractor made the seat tilt after a while *sigh*
So we ended up just putting the lock-offs back on, and putting the seat on the side and using the lock-off instead of the retractor.
Oh, and one thing that helped me a lot with install in this vehicle, is that Britax told me that you can have the seat in the upright mode while RFing. When I installed it in the normal RF recline mode, it made the seat way to reclined. Just something you may want to keep in mind.

Also, Britax told me that I could tether to the vehicle bench seat, as long as the spot was directly below. So it could go straight down (and within 20 degrees side to side) but it couldn't go below the child restraint. Does that make sense? So they either want it tethered to something in front of the child restraint (towards the dash) or something straight down, but you can't go under the child restraint (towards the bed) And going side to side it must be within 20 degrees of the center.

Boy I hope that my post wasn't really, really confusing. Please ask if I confused you on anything I said

This may be a weird question, but does anyone have a picture of the tether? I've never even seen how that works, yeah I'm new at all this

My husband is not really up for driving without being able to see the right mirror, but when I tell him that the only other alternative is to get the stationwagon fixed, he's suddenly very quiet....that drives me nuts! Time is running out and he sure isn't helping! I'm pretty sure DS will reach 22lbs by the end of the month!