Question Harmony Defender 360 install in CRV

We have a 2004 CRV and recently bought two Harmony Defender 360's for our 5 yo twins. We are having the hardest time getting a tight install using either latch or the seatbelts. The seatbelts do lock and even with the full weight of my body in the seat and the belt as tight as possible it still slides more than an inch at the beltpath. And when I try to tighten the harness when my daughter is sitting in it, the whole front of the seat pulls up when I pull on the strap. Is there something we can try to get a tighter install or does this seat just not work with a crv?

Hi and welcome! I have not installed a Defender myself, so this is just general info that you might be able to use. It may be that the Defender is indeed incompatible.

First, make sure you are tightening from inside the belt path. I don't know how the Defender is set up, so either pull back the cover for access to the belt path, or pull from the opposite side. This will give you better leverage then trying to pull up or out on the outside of the belt path. I've had a seat in my vehicle before that the best way to get the slack out was to install it and get it as tight as I could normally, then step outside the car and grab the shoulder belt and lean my weight back.

If your belt stalks are longer, they may be keeping you from getting it any tighter. You can twist them up to 3 full 360 degree turns to get them down and out of the way.

If you are pushing the bottom the seat back so there's no gap at the bottom and back, then don't do that (not that it's wrong or anything). Try to let the seat settle into where it naturally wants to go. It may be that you can install, then pull the base out a bit, and then finish tightening and it will remain tight.

If your vehicle allows you to recline your seats a click or 2, you might try that as well.

The defender is very hard in my experience. There is a recline feature and the seat must sit a certain way against the back of the seat. It is also not allowed to hang off the seat at all. The one time I did successfully install it was with seat belt. I raised the head rest all the way and stuck my arm into the cover to acess the belt path.

I don't have any experience with that particular seat, but do have a 2007 CRV which I know is a different body style, but hopefully they're similar. Here's a trick I learned on this site to get seats tight: Recline the vehicle seat several clicks. Throw the top tether over the seatback so it doesn't get trapped later. Install the carseat using LATCH or seatbelt, whatever works, as tightly as you can, and twisting the seatbelt stalk if you need to. Go into the trunk space and while pulling on the lever to adjust the vehicle seat recline, push the vehicle seat back upright as hard as you can with your shoulder. Hopefully you now have less than 1 inch of movement in the belt path. Attach your top tether and pull it tight. Hope that helps.