Is it too tight?

Mommy2Five

New member
Is there such thing as an install that's too tight?
Can you damage the seatbelt or the belt path of the CS by over tightening?

DH thinks I'm damaging the cars seats by putting the kids seats in too tight...
This is one of our Nautilus's, the recline base is completely burried in the seat..
IMG_0010.jpg

should I loosen it? I always put all my weight into a seat and then tighten the seatbelt...I've always thought the tighter the better.. Could I conceivably break something? Could being too tight cause the seat to react differently(worse) in a crash?

If anyone can answer any of these questions TIA!
 
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joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
It won't break...the force YOU can put on it is not even *close* to the force a crash will put on it. I don't even think the vehicle seat will be permanently harmed...I think you just have pretty squishy seats :thumbsup: You probably don't need to put quite so much muscle into your installs, though...it's fine if they don't move at the belt path (yeah, the rule is one inch is acceptable, I don't think anyone here is letting their seats move THAT much!), they don't have to be squished down quite so hard, though.

:)
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
:yeahthat: to Jules. :)

Just for fun, a couple pic's of how much vehicle seats can compress. Mine have to compress like this near the front of the seat in order to get the back of the carseat base to contact the vehicle seat.

2297060736_d2df4892b2.jpg


My seat is installed with LATCH right now and the cushions are even more compressed. Some vehicles just have more compressible seats than others.

And here's a pic of the seat compressed rf'ing - it's fully back out now with no marks from the MA base, and that happened even with the EFTA installed rf'ing in the same position. :thumbsup:

2377551687_6e3a5eed0d.jpg

This link will give you an idea of how the vehicle seats are sloped. The front edge is considerably compressed from tightening of the top tether even in this picture: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2265/2378390186_74bc3865c2.jpg
 

skiersnowboarder3

Senior Community Member
We had an infant seat base in my tech class that was damaged while being installed. It was done by a firefighter man (big, tall man) who put all of his weight into the installation.
 

Mae

Well-known member
skiersnowboarder3 -- What brand was the seats base? This kind of makes me nervous...
 

safeinthecar

Moderator - CPS Technician
We had an infant seat base in my tech class that was damaged while being installed. It was done by a firefighter man (big, tall man) who put all of his weight into the installation.

If you kneel at the wrong spot (right at the front) of a Snug Ride base you can break the little tabs for the recline foot.

I broke a seat (ffing convertible) at a check event once. But it was at least 10 years old.:eek: I was actually secretly happy I broke it, since the give away seat protocol at that event was only replace seats that were broken or have a recall calling for discontinuing use of the seat.
 

Mae

Well-known member
This is OT, and I apologize lol, but when I was intalling my ss1 base over the weekend, I was putting it center with a lap only manual belt and since it was tight, the latchplate scrapted a little plastic... Is that bad? Did I just ruin my base?!?
 

dhardawa

Active member
I jammed the recline mechanism on two Roundabouts by overtightening. If you make an "L" with your finger and thumb and pretend that is the car seat, then start pulling the two ends of the "L" together, that is what I did to them. I noticed a problem when she was sitting VERY upright in her seat. I essentially made it conform to the shape of the vehicle seat. So, yes, you can overtighten a seat. But, being pressed into the seat does not equal overtightening.
 

joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
We had an infant seat base in my tech class that was damaged while being installed. It was done by a firefighter man (big, tall man) who put all of his weight into the installation.
That's probably why the new curriculum really harps about only using your hands to install the seat :rolleyes:

Anyway, sorry, I was kind of thinking of this particular seat the OP was showing, my mind didn't venture into the various broken britax recline mechanisms and ripped out rip stitch tethers and snugride recline tabs I've heard about :cool:
 

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