2005 Honda Odyssey

Hi! My husband and I are expecting our 4th child in a few months and we're wondering what to do with our car seat situation. All 3 of our children are FFing in Britax Boulevards. Our 05 Odyssey only has one tether point in the 3rd row. Our plan was to put our oldest and the new baby in the captain seats, and our twins in the 3rd row. My first question is does anyone know if the dealership can install tether anchors in the back row of this particular model? If not, is it absolutely necessary to use these tether anchors? Are there any seats better suited for this than the Boulevard? I've been trying to research this all day, and am pretty stressed out about it! Any insight would be great, thanks!

Hi and welcome! Congratulations on your upcoming baby! Top tethers are important for forward-facing children, and, unless I am mistaken, retrofitting top tethers isn't possible in your van. However, if you wanted to share the ages and weights of your other kiddos, the posters here may be able to brainstorm some other configurations or new car seats that could help you make sure everyone is as safe as possible.

Hi, thanks for the reply! My oldest is almost 5 and weighs 37 lbs. My twins are 3 and weigh 33-34 lbs.

I think you may be able to purchase a top tether anchor kit from Honda and install them yourself. The places for them are already there in some Honda vans. I know I checked on this a few years ago for a friend w/a Honda Oddy, but I think hers is an '04. It can vary from model year to model year. If it's available, the kit was cheap ($15-20 a few years ago). You could make a separate post asking about retrofitting top ta's in an '05 Oddy.

If you cannot get top ta's retrofitted, I would consider using the top ta's you have for the 3 yr olds and put the almost 5 yr old in the third row where there isn't one (outboard) in a Radian that can be passed down thru the kids. The Radian is a nice, narrow seat that often fits side by side w/other seats, tested very well without the top tether, and will last much longer height wise than the Boulevards. Another option would be to buy one or two Radian and turn one or both the twins back around. Then you wouldn't have to worry about top tether anchors. If they still fit in their Blvds rearfacing, you can use them rearfacing.

It looks like from a brief search of the board that top tether anchors were not retrofittable in the 2005 models, just 2004 and earlier. Check out this thread: http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=86746

I can think of two possible solutions off of the top of my head, and hopefully more posters will chime in with other ideas. 1) You could place your infant in the third row with one of the kiddos and put the other two in the captains chairs so that everyone who is forward-facing has a top tether. 2) The other possibility is to put one or both of your three year olds rear-facing to avoid having to have someone without a top tether; if your Boulevards are older models with 35 pound rear-facing weight limits or the newer models with 40 pound rear-facing weight limits but are outgrown rear-facing by height, we could suggest an alternative convertible or 2 to help you accomplish that. Maybe by using one of these options for some time, by the time your kiddos are all a little older, maybe you'll be comfortable with your oldest in a booster, and you'd be able to reconfigure all the seats as needed. Good luck, and I hope someone else will have some more ideas for you!

ETA: I'm such a slow typer! I see henrietta also has already posted!

According to Honda and Britax, the versa-tether on Britaxs can be used with a tether anchor that is a certain amount of degrees off-center, and they both have confirmed that the criteria for this is met when the seat is used in the passenger side position in the third row. So you can use the off center tether anchor there with Britax seats.

There is a thread about it here somewhere (ipad searches are not fun, though). It was proposed for inclusion in the current LATCH manual... I don't know if it made it in because I don't have a copy.

Also, there have been members who have installed after market anchors (like EZ-On) in their 2005's. Obviously that's a parental decision. If you want pictures of this feel free to PM me.