LATCH plus seatbelt and vehicle manufacturers

Re: Nice work on the webinar today, Trudy!

Since the webnar, I've been trying to find out from vehicle manufactueres, other than ford whether they would allow the use of both seatbelt and latch, if the car seat allows. So far, vw is the only company that has given me a response and it is in the affirmative. I see that it's going to take me a while to work my way through customer service to get real answers from the rest.

Re: Nice work on the webinar today, Trudy!

My investigation isn't going so well. Customer service tells me that they cannot answer such questions and so I must contact my local deal or service center. I will try that, but expect to not find out anything.

Re: Nice work on the webinar today, Trudy!

christineka said:

My investigation isn't going so well. Customer service tells me that they cannot answer such questions and so I must contact my local deal or service center. I will try that, but expect to not find out anything.

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I would say the local dealer or service center isn't going to be much help in that regard.

I know that GM's fallback in the past when I've contacted them and my question got sent to the engineers was that I should follow my carseat manual.

With the exception of when one system interferes with the other, there really isn't any risk in using both systems - both systems are designed to work independently of each other, and when used together with a rigid LATCH install, they are both there - *if* one were to fail, the other one would be there and still work the normal way.

With flexible LATCH belts, one method of install does influence the other - but that's just not the case with rigid LATCH. I understand how it's a manual issue in some aspects when it comes to vehicles, but talking straight load-bearing-strength, using the seatbelt doesn't affect the lower anchor strength and vice versa...

Re: Nice work on the webinar today, Trudy!

Clek CPST said:

With the exception of when one system interferes with the other, there really isn't any risk in using both systems - both systems are designed to work independently of each other, and when used together with a rigid LATCH install, they are both there - *if* one were to fail, the other one would be there and still work the normal way.

With flexible LATCH belts, one method of install does influence the other - but that's just not the case with rigid LATCH. I understand how it's a manual issue in some aspects when it comes to vehicles, but talking straight load-bearing-strength, using the seatbelt doesn't affect the lower anchor strength and vice versa...

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Where are you every time someone comes up with their own explanation of how using two systems cancels out the effectiveness? Apparently The Car Seat Lady has some such explanation on her website, which is being spread around. While I don't recommend people install their seats against the rules, I also don't like false explanations being spread around either.

Re: Nice work on the webinar today, Trudy!

christineka said:

Where are you every time someone comes up with their own explanation of how using two systems cancels out the effectiveness? Apparently The Car Seat Lady has some such explanation on her website, which is being spread around. While I don't recommend people install their seats against the rules, I also don't like false explanations being spread around either.

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Well, when using the flexible LATCH, the biggest issue is really that one method of installation typically hides a loose install of the other method - so neither install is truly tight. You also have issue with different webbing stretch - LATCH belt webbing is going to stretch differently than a seatbelt.

There are potential performance changes when you talk about using both LATCH and seatbelt with flexible LATCH due to those two issues - but talking from a vehicle standpoint itself, one system isn't going to make the other system not work. I've actually never fallen back on a vehicle manual as "why not to do it" but rather have always pointed out the warning in the car seat manual and explained how one system can interfere with the other.

One other point - for all we know, there may not be a substantial change in performance when using flexible LATCH together with the seatbelt if the LATCH install starts out tight. But it's more a case that we don't know how it might affect the performance of the seat.

In my experience also, most people add a seatbelt because the LATCH install is too loose - and I think that's a problem. But again - it's not a problem you'd see with rigid LATCH.