EFTA installation RFing?

I recently purchased an EFTA for my parents mercedes. They have 2 cars that they will occaisionally use so I tried to find a seat that would fit both. My mom's 2 door and my step dad's 4 door. They babysit my 10month old once a week and sometimes on weekends. So, trying to install it in my stepdad's sedan was so time consuming. The Latch didn't fit. It wasn't long enough. I fed it through the correct RF holes but the base of the triumph seat is wider than his latch connection sites so the latch belt just wouldn't reach nor could I get them latched in because the car seat base was in the way. So I gave up and tried installing it with the seat bealt. It definitely needs a small noodle to level it so I did that. I finally got the seat belt installed as tight as I could and put the locking clip on it but the seat still has so much wiggle room. I had my mom helping me by pushing the seat down and getting the seat belt as tight as I possible could. There is no place in the vehicle to teather it rear facing. No place for a D-ring even if I had one. The EFTA doesn't come with a D-ring either. The front seats of the mercedes have no gap where they are bolted down so there is really absolutely no place to RF teather it. Is it OK for a car seat to have a lot of wiggle room. The seat belt is tight but can be moved side to side and up and down A LOT! I just don't see how that it safe. I could swear that I did the install correctly. I had a technician teach me a while back when my baby was first born. But man, it's not easy at all to get a snug fit!

You want to only check for movement at the beltpath. It should move no more than 1".

The EFTA cannot be tethered RFing. Only Britax and SK allow this.

Ah ha... well that would explain why the tether strap doesn't even reach to the front seat. So it's normal to have all that movement at the top of the seat? I'll check the movement side to side at the belt path when I go pick dd up. I just don't know how people do this install when you can't really get your whole body in the car to push down on the seat and then trying to do it by yourself is a B****!. I bet there are soooooo many seats not installed properly out there!

LATCH seating positions have anchors that are a standardized 11" apart, so I'm having difficulties imagining the exact problem - it's quite normal for the anchors to have to go somewhat around the base of a rf'ing seat, and as long as the seat isn't sitting on top of the lower anchors, there's no danger in it.

As for your movement, you want to be checking only at the belt path - the belt path is the spot where the seatbelt routes through the carseat. When you grab and try to move the seat side to side at the belt path, you want there to be less than 1" of movement - and in terms of the effort in checking for movement, one hand with firm but not vigorous movement is all you should be using.

The back of the carseat will have movement, and that's perfectly normal in a rf'ing seat - it's just the nature of the design. What you care about is only movement at the belt path. As long as you're under 1", you're golden.

I'm not sure how well you can see the LATCH connectors in this picture, but I'll post a pic of the bottom part of my EFTA , and then also a link to a picture of the radian base. The EFTA was more upright when I took this pic, and the way the LATCH connectors sit in relation to the base does vary depending on how upright or reclined the seat is. I have some other pictures, but none of them allowed the visual of the connectors quite as well as this one.



When the base of the seat is closer to the vehicle seat, then the connectors tend to turn slightly so that they're kind of on an angle. You can kind of see it in this picture. I cropped a full size one to zoom in on this area. You can see how the connector is somewhat flat the way it's coming out of the seat bite, then the fabric of the LATCH belt is going up. The base of the seat is NOT sitting on top of the metal connector piece. On the other side of the seat the connector was going pretty much straight up, then the belt was wrapping up to the belt path. Not sure if I'm describing this clearly enough or not, but hopefully this helps somewhat. You can definitely see how the belt turns in this picture anyways. :thumbsup:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2401/2457814672_a92c35025a.jpg?v=0

The Radian picture is a really good example of how the LATCH belt comes around the base because the rf'ing boot is wider than the LATCH anchors are.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/snowbird25ca/car seats/carseat2ndfolderstartjuly07116.jpg

I hope that helps a little.

jewels2b said:

Ah ha... well that would explain why the tether strap doesn't even reach to the front seat. So it's normal to have all that movement at the top of the seat? I'll check the movement side to side at the belt path when I go pick dd up. I just don't know how people do this install when you can't really get your whole body in the car to push down on the seat and then trying to do it by yourself is a B****!. I bet there are soooooo many seats not installed properly out there!

Click to expand...

Yep, it's a pretty common mistake to see a rf'ing seat that isn't allowed to be tethered rf'ing, tethered to something. I think it is partly because more people are aware of tethering when ff'ing (well, it's mandatory in Canada, so I think some people just aren't distinguishing the difference when rf'ing vs. ff'ing,) and that they don't realize that the same doesn't apply with a rf'ing seat.

That definitely helps! But for some reason, I couldn't even get the latch belt to reach to the other latch. Maybe the noodle I was using was too big but the line of the arrow was level so I figured I needed the noodle to be that size. Just seems like the latch belt was too short. I must be doing something wrong because I seriously couldn't even get it to reach the other latch. Are car-seat technician once told me that it's better to use the seat belt anyway. Is that true?
Thanks so much for posting those photos. I'm gonna keep trying. Don't need to go to the gym today after all this, LOL! It must be easy for you pros and hopefully someday this will be second nature for me.

snowbird: I have another question... how in the world do you realease the harness with the knob and release button so close to the seat back. That's another thing we are having problems with. My parents aren't very technically savvy and I can't even imagine them trying to install these things. And with the knob so close, my mom is going to have a really hard time releasing and tightening the harness.
We bought the EFTA because of it's lower back height and the adustable shoulder positions because they also babysit my brothers dd who is only 5 months older than my dd.

How old is your dd? When the seat is more upright, the knobs are easier to use. I've also found that just slight repositioning seems to make a difference depending on if the knobs are ending up higher or lower on the seat. When the seat was fully reclined, the levers were definitely more difficult, but it was also winter. The levers do loosen up somewhat over time, so playing with loosening and tightening will help that happen a bit faster. That's what I did since everything gets harder to operate in the bitter cold.

Here's a pic of how the knobs are at present.



I haven't actually had ds out since I reinstalled it this time, but there's room for me to get my fingers all the way around the knob now, so the lever should also be easier to press. Our seat is passenger side, so I can use my dominant hand to depress the lever, I'm sure I'd get used to it on the other side too, but would likely have a bit of difficulty just because the action would be different than I'm used to. The seat is really quite upright in it's current install, so a younger baby definitely wouldn't be able to handle it this upright, but experiment some with how you're positioning the seat. If you're only using one noodle, try using 2 noodles and then pulling the base slightly away from the seat bite and pushing down on the back of the shell when you tighten the belt. That will tip the feet area slightly up, and starting with it further back should buy you some room to turn the knob. Once you know you can get the install tight, just monkey with it by repositioning it and seeing how it affects where the knobs meet the vehicle seatback. Depending on the angle of the seatbacks, and the contouring, it may or may not be easy, but it's worth a try anyways.

Also, if you can put it in the middle of the vehicle with the seatbelt, you'll have oodles more room to access the knobs. I had the seat center in our truck recently, and because the center has no contouring to interfere, the knobs had a couple inches of clearance. (The locking clip was used to prevent the seat from tilting, it's not mandatory if your seatbelts lock in some way. All vehicles 1997 and older have locking seatbelts of one sort or another. )
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2232/2444665970_4a531e15ac.jpg?v=0

Thanks you've been a big help. Putting the seat in the center isn't an option in the 2-door as the center back seat has a consol instead of a seat. In the 4-door I can do it but then my mom would have vision problems when she turned to look behind her. She's only 5ft. DD is 10 months and about 21lbs and 28inches tall. I think the seat fits her well. Just installing on a slippery leather seat isn't easy. I'll keep playing with it when I have time. Luckily they don't need to take her anywhere right now.