Does Latch make ANY sense?

Just for discussion...

My baby's Orbit toddler seat is installed with latch (base plus seat is 36.5 lbs.), add a 35 lb. kid (the max RF, and we'll use it to that) and that's 71.5 lbs. stressing the Latch in my Honda. So would anyone be nervous? Not that I am but...

Then if I put a 50 lb. kid (limit) in a Maestro (that weighs about 13 lbs.), that's 63 lbs. stressing the Latch, and that's NOT OK since the kid is over 40 lbs.

(Note that Honda has a 40 lb. kid latch limit, as well as the seat)

So, you can see above, none of these limits makes any sense. Doing what it OK by the books (situation A) puts more stress on latch than doing what's not OK (situation B). Thoughts?

What beast of a car seat weighs nearly 37lbs?

The thing about these types of situations is that there has to be some kind of blanket limit that can be followed. It would be ridiculous and impossible to go though every combination of car seat weight and child weight, not to mention it would be a complete mess in the "real world" if there were so many different variables. So, as an educator, I like the "this is your cars LATCH limit and when your child hits that weight you need to use seatbelt". It's easy, there's only one thing for parents to remember and watch for. Does it always make sense? No, but it's vital to keep things somewhat simplistic for parents. Let's face it, we are the minority in terms of being extremely vigilant in our kids car seat installations. The less information I have to give a parent, the more likely they are to remember stuff. It's so much simpler for car manufacturers to say, "Your limit is X lbs" instead of "In XYZ situation your limit is A lbs, but in JKL situation its B lbs. But if you use this car seat, it's P lbs."

Maybe the LATCH anchors could hold much more than they currently set the limit at, but on the whole, I'm a very big fan of the manufacturers setting an across the board limit.

There are revisions to the LATCH standards coming down the road which address this very issue.

And, IMO, they are going to make LATCH even more confusing than it already is. :/

Just to throw in more discussion.

But if they revise then what, I can't use my heavy seat with Latch up until the child is 35 lbs RF? When my manual clearly states I can. I agree it's going to create more confusion.

Was it 65 lbs. combined weight? Then basically the day I bought the seat for my baby (when he was 16 months)...I could not use latch.

The thing is, a pricey seat that boasts a 60 second install with Latch (and wow, it was easy!) had better not tell me I can't use that feature from day one, lol. Is all this going to be retro-active? There are a lot of heavy seats out there that suddenly Latch would not work with as intended.

LATCH is a confusing mess IMO So no, it doesn't make sense to me. Great idea in theory - make installing seats easier, but the application SUCKS!

I rarely use latch anymore. It's just too much to keep up with (eg car seat manny limits, vs car manny limits, plus doing all the math).... I just go for the seat belt.

What I'd like to know is if there is any reports of Latch failing in a crash.

I never knew there was a weight limit until coming here. My 58 lb son would still be using it if I never was here. That with GN is what? 80 lbs?? Scary.

auto correct hates me

Its a mess that is about to be a bigger mess, IMHO.

Before coming here, I had no idea the car had a latch limt. I always thought you went by the stated limit in the carseat manual and I considered myself a pretty knowledgable about carseats in general at the time.

I agree that the changes are going to make it even worse.