A couple questions

Hi, I just have a couple questions for you wonderful people (thanks so much for all the help you have given mover the past few years!). Anyway, I have a 2011 Toyota sienna (se), with my frontier 85 installed in the second row captians chair. I am forced to remove the seats head rest because the car seat will not fit flush against the back of the seat with it there. My question is this...because of the v shape of the tether, I have to pull it so hard it actually squished the seat back terribly. Is this acceptable? Are there any tricks to prevent this? My other question is this...in my past car, I had a MA installed with the seat belt. When we traded it in, it appeared the seat belt was stretched out. It no longer pulled fully close to the seat as it did before (it was the middle seat). Is it possible that the seat belt could have stretched out or am I crazy in thinking that? In my new van, my plan was to keep my ds harnessed using latch and then boostering once he was too heavy for the latches. He's just turning 5 this month and I still don't feel like he's ready to be boostered. I just really didn't want to do the seatbelt install but he's at the latch limit now. Thanks for any advice.

Hi & welcome!

Regarding your top tether - you do not need to tighten up a top tether as tight as you possibly can. Just take the slack out and that's it. It sounds as if you have yours very tight.

Seatbelts typically can't be damaged by simply installing a carseat. I know mine have some wrinkles that haven't really come out, but the seatbelt does not seem 'stretched' in any way. Was it an older car? Or was the belt maybe not feeding all the way back into the retractor? If you're concerned about it you might try moving your son's seat occasionally to a different spot, so you give that seating location a rest.

Thanks for the suggestion. The car that I had the problem in was new, maybe you're right about it not going back into the retractor all the way. I was thinking that if I can keep my ds harnessed untill my dd turns 3 (next Oct.), then when I'm ready to ff her I can switch their seats and she'll be in that chair using latch for at least another 2-3 years and we won't have to worry about the seat belt anyway. Maybe by then I can convince my dh to get me a new car lol! Thanks again