How can you tell if your RF seat can touch the passenger seat in front of it?

U

Unregistered

Guest
I have a 2011 Honda Fit, a tiny car, and need to get two RF seats in there (infant and toddler). I have seen in other threads that you either can, or cannot let the child's seat touch the front passenger or driver's seat. How do you find that information out? I am test fitting Radians tomorrow, so I need to know soon. My husband is 6'6" so his seat has to be all the way back.
 
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wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
It's in your car's manual, in the airbag section. You likely have a restriction against the passenger seat, but not the driver's seat.

Wendy
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
Thanks Wendy. I actually read that part of the manual today and don't remember any mention of it. I'll look again. Also, it didn't say anything in the manual about if the LATCH can be used in the center seat or not. I am guessing not, but it did say you can put a child's seat in any position, just didn't mention the LATCH in that sentence.
 

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
Hondas generally say in the LATCH section, "You have LATCH for your outer seats", which means no to the center borrowing.

The airbag stuff is usually along the lines of, "Don't kick, hang things, push against, etc." the passenger and/or driver's seat.

Wendy
 

BMWBig6

Member
How much of a gap between the front passenger seat and a RF seat is sufficient then (if they are not supposed to touch)? I mean, in a serious accident, couldn't the seats flex and touch each other (even if they have 1" separation at rest)?

And are all "touches" equal? For example, is having the soft fabric pouch (that contains the tether strap/buckle) gently grazing the back of the front passenger seat a no-no like direct contact from wedging the hard plastic shell of a RF seat against it? Or would that be ok?
 

Pixels

New member
Any space is sufficient. The reason for no touching is to avoid providing misinformation to the advanced airbag sensors. Yes, in a crash the seats will impact each other, but the car's computer has already made its determination about the size and position of the occupant and therefore by that point it's irrelevant.

If you've ever played with the Airbag Off warning light, you know that it takes the car about 3-5 seconds to respond by turning the light off or on. It does this so that momentary changes in position aren't constantly turning the system off and on, and also so that the car is using pre-crash information, not during-the-crash info.
 

LISmama810

Admin - CPS Technician
BMWBig6 said:
And are all "touches" equal? For example, is having the soft fabric pouch (that contains the tether strap/buckle) gently grazing the back of the front passenger seat a no-no like direct contact from wedging the hard plastic shell of a RF seat against it? Or would that be ok?

I'm a stickler when it comes to not touching, but I wouldn't worry about the fabric pouch touching. That's not putting pressure on anything. (Presuming it's just the pouch hanging there, not being shoved against it with pressure.)

I think a Honda engineer once said it was ok as long as you could pull a piece of paper through.
 

whitneyg

New member
Just to thoroughly clarify (because this will determine what type of seat I buy):
The manual said something like what Wendy mentioned above about "not kicking, hanging things on, touching, etc" the passenger's seat, but no mention was made of anything like that in the section about the driver's seat. Does that sound like it is okay to brace a seat against the driver's seat? I would need to have them touching in a big way, not just grazing each other.
 

jjordan

Moderator
Hi Don - the dates on the previous responses are 2012. Things have changed since then. :) The blog post you linked to is 2017 so that explains the disparity.
 

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