Tough choices....by tomorrow!

My two youngest will be going to visit with Grama on Thursday and staying a few days. They only have one vehicle, a 90's Ford F250 extended cab pickup. Last time they visited, I installed a MA and a Wizard, but not to my complete satisfaction. The back bench seat is short in depth and height, and the car seats did not fit as well as they should; both of them would either sit with the base totally flat on the seat, but be smashing into the back glass too hard (very hard, to the point we were afraid it would break from the pressure), or to avoid the glass, I had to make it so the bases did not sit flat on the seat. Here are some drawings to show you what I mean:

I was able to get the seats installed tightly, but I was not totally happy. So this time I have the Regent and Nautilus available, as well as a Turbo booster. I think I will let Heather use the Turbo, but that leaves Laura who needs a harness. I can't test fit any seats in the truck beforehand as Grama and Grampa live 2+ hrs away and we will be meeting halfway between us for them to get the girls, so I will have very limited time to mess around with seats. To complicate matters, my Regent is post advisory so I have even less allowed options. As far as I can tell, the Nauti will possibly hang over the front edge of the bench by maybe an inch or two. I know that there is no way that the Regent will fit with the recline bar, it just makes it too deep and her legs will have no where to go at all. I even went so far as to drive through the car dealerships here in town yesterday to see if they had a similar truck for me to try seats in! Oh, and the truck has no tether anchors.
Ok, so my tough choices will be, to use the Wizard with the less than ideal installation, use the Nauti with possible overhang, or maybe the Regent without recline bar (if it will fit at all), and figure it all out in minimal time in a McDonald's parking lot! At this point I am looking for input as to what other techs would do if it was YOUR children, not what you would tell parents to do at say, a check. I want personal opinions on a tough choice, and I will make the final choice. Personally, I wish grama had not gotten rid of her Focus!!

On the issue of the Nautilus overhang, I use it sometimes in my husbands truck and have a little bit of overhang. I am totally confident in the install. If it were me, I would use the turbo and the Nautilus.

However much we may want to keep our kids fully harnessed for as long as is humanly possible, other than getting some new and small footprint HWH seats for one/all the kids, I'd say you need to look at boosters for the youngest. They are all technically big enough for boosters, even though you and I don't want them in one. Now you need to decide which ones and how much you want to spend. You said there were no top tethers, but you didn't mention if the seat had lower LATCH, how high the seat back was, and if it had head restraints.

You do have an option when it comes to finding a HWH seat for the youngest. Go test drive a Ford F250, even a used one if needs be. Actually that would be better if you can get a model year that corresponds to what Gama has. Now "test drive" it to BRU, Target, or whatever baby store you have nearby that will allow you to try seats before you buy them. At this point just start trying everything they have that your DD's will fit into and see if they can be installed properly. Once you find seats that work, buy them and donate them to Gama. Oh yeah... bring the truck back. The dealerships kind of frown on you keeping them without actually buying them.

Good luck. I don't envy you.

mish said:

On the issue of the Nautilus overhang, I use it sometimes in my husbands truck and have a little bit of overhang. I am totally confident in the install. If it were me, I would use the turbo and the Nautilus.

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The picture in red is the one with the overhang. There is hardly any of the Nautilus touching the seat back. The one in blue has the Nautilus rotated pretty far forward. Is the forward pitch as bad as it seems in the illustration?

Those are the things that have me concerned about those two installations.

wineaux, I believe the pics are of when she was installing the Wizard and MA

sunnymw said:

wineaux, I believe the pics are of when she was installing the Wizard and MA

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Duh, I was seeing her talk about the Nautilus and Turbo Booster, so I ass/u/me'd that was what the pictures were, as they certainly weren't of the Turbo Booster! LOL

So, do we know what the Nautilus looks like in the install? How much of an overhang is there?

Wineaux said:

However much we may want to keep our kids fully harnessed for as long as is humanly possible, other than getting some new and small footprint HWH seats for one/all the kids, I'd say you need to look at boosters for the youngest. They are all technically big enough for boosters, even though you and I don't want them in one. Now you need to decide which ones and how much you want to spend. You said there were no top tethers, but you didn't mention if the seat had lower LATCH, how high the seat back was, and if it had head restraints.

You do have an option when it comes to finding a HWH seat for the youngest. Go test drive a Ford F250, even a used one if needs be. Actually that would be better if you can get a model year that corresponds to what Gama has. Now "test drive" it to BRU, Target, or whatever baby store you have nearby that will allow you to try seats before you buy them. At this point just start trying everything they have that your DD's will fit into and see if they can be installed properly. Once you find seats that work, buy them and donate them to Gama. Oh yeah... bring the truck back. The dealerships kind of frown on you keeping them without actually buying them.

Good luck. I don't envy you.

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I did go and see if the local dealers (3 of them) had a used truck similar to grampa's, but no luck. The newer body style has a bigger back seat, so that does me no good. I also have $0 budget to just go buy a new seat on the hope that it will fit better than the Nauti or Regent will (and no local stores carry anything different except maybe the True Fit), and the girls only go with Grama for a few days once a year. My youngest just turned 5 about a week ago, has never ridden in a booster, and I would absolutely not trust her to ride in one for the first time with Grama while away from me for 3 days on the other side of the state. I have to get one of my current seats to fit well enough. The back bench of their truck is (from what I can find) approx. 15" deep and the back is not much higher than that, but I have no measurements for the back. The Nauti will possibly overhang by about 1.5-2"; I put the Nauti fully upright and measured from the seat back to where the base ended at the front and got about 16.5". I am going to bring the Wizard, the Nauti, the Regent and the Turbo with me tomorrow to see which fits best. The truck has no LATCh, lap belt only center, lap/shoulders both outboard seats no head restraints at all and the seat back is very short.
Oh, and it doesn't help that my teenager will be going to have to ride in the back of this truck with no head restraint after the little ones get back!

monzogary said:

I did go and see if the local dealers (3 of them) had a used truck similar to grampa's, but no luck. The newer body style has a bigger back seat, so that does me no good. I also have $0 budget to just go buy a new seat on the hope that it will fit better than the Nauti or Regent will (and no local stores carry anything different except maybe the True Fit), and the girls only go with Grama for a few days once a year. My youngest just turned 5 about a week ago, has never ridden in a booster, and I would absolutely not trust her to ride in one for the first time with Grama while away from me for 3 days on the other side of the state. I have to get one of my current seats to fit well enough. The back bench of their truck is (from what I can find) approx. 15" deep and the back is not much higher than that, but I have no measurements for the back. The Nauti will possibly overhang by about 1.5-2"; I put the Nauti fully upright and measured from the seat back to where the base ended at the front and got about 16.5". I am going to bring the Wizard, the Nauti, the Regent and the Turbo with me tomorrow to see which fits best. The truck has no LATCh, lap belt only center, lap/shoulders both outboard seats no head restraints at all and the seat back is very short.
Oh, and it doesn't help that my teenager will be going to have to ride in the back of this truck with no head restraint after the little ones get back!

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Oh, WOW!

You asked for my honest opinion.....If all three of my kids were going I would ask if we could switch vehicles.....

Otherwise, gosh, I just don't know.

As long as the "gap" at the back of the base is slight (20% or less), I'd go with the blue one. I've installed DD's Marathon like that in my parents' old F150, and that's also how it installs in the 3rd row of my Mazda5.

I'd also install it in the outboard position so it could have a lap/shoulder belt, since there are no tether anchors.

(FTR, it's a tough-choices week for us, too. I'm leaving a Britax Laptop for my DD to use in the front-center of my parents' new F150. *sigh* Someone has to use the front-center-lap-belt-only position, and she's the only one who fits in the Laptop. My only other option would be putting the Radian in that position for her, and my parents aren't likely to leave it installed.)

Defrost said:

As long as the "gap" at the back of the base is slight (20% or less), I'd go with the blue one. I've installed DD's Marathon like that in my parents' old F150, and that's also how it installs in the 3rd row of my Mazda5.

I'd also install it in the outboard position so it could have a lap/shoulder belt, since there are no tether anchors.

(FTR, it's a tough-choices week for us, too. I'm leaving a Britax Laptop for my DD to use in the front-center of my parents' new F150. *sigh* Someone has to use the front-center-lap-belt-only position, and she's the only one who fits in the Laptop. My only other option would be putting the Radian in that position for her, and my parents aren't likely to leave it installed.)

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I did do that the last time. It leaned forward quite a bit, and it was fairly uncomfortable for her, although it was hard to tell how much actual gap there was at the back of the base. The biggest problem with the Wizard is the back of the car seat shell curves and makes a natural recline, which is why it smashes into the back glass if the base is flat, and why if I try to get it straight at the back of the seat, it leans forward too much. At this point, I am still going to bring all the seats with me, and I think I am going to try the Nauti first to see how it fits and then reassess from there. I REALLY wish they had a different vehicle!!
Thanks for all the feedback everyone, feel free to keep it coming! I appreciate all the input I can get.

I saw the lack of budget, but would it possibly be cheaper to rent a car for the weekend in the long run? See what you can get from Priceline or something.

I would see if they would trade vehicles. That is what we do when we leave the kids with gramma - although it is no longer than 1/2 day Just in case they need the seats, we take their truck and leave our van.

If it were me, I would make the parental decision to try the Regent without the recline bar. It doesn't have the natural recline that the WZ does and probably won't touch the window at all, depending on how sloped the vehicle seat is. Also, Britax allows the Regent to hang over the vehicle seat if needed - Graco doesn't.

melniemi said:

I would see if they would trade vehicles. That is what we do when we leave the kids with gramma - although it is no longer than 1/2 day Just in case they need the seats, we take their truck and leave our van.

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Yeah, I tried to talk them into just that last time. Grampa was NOT keen on the idea!

BookMama said:

If it were me, I would make the parental decision to try the Regent without the recline bar. It doesn't have the natural recline that the WZ does and probably won't touch the window at all, depending on how sloped the vehicle seat is. Also, Britax allows the Regent to hang over the vehicle seat if needed - Graco doesn't.

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I will take the Regent, and try it as well. I will have to whack the bar out tonight when I take it out of dh's car and practice installing it. Since there is no tether anchor in the truck, would you install with short or long belt path in it? Laura weighs at most 43#. The bench seat in the truck is flat on the bottom and the back is totally upright.

monzogary said:

Since there is no tether anchor in the truck, would you install with short or long belt path in it? Laura weighs at most 43#.

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If you can get a good SBP installation, I'd go with that.

Ok, I have the recline bar out, and the Nauti and Regent are in the 3rd row of my van for the ride. Also, the Turbo is in the 2nd row along with the WZ in its normal 2nd row captain's chair. Let's hope that I can get two of these seats in the truck easily! Wish me luck for tomorrow.

ETA: I never knew how much shorter depth wise the Regent is without that darn recline bar! It doesn't even come close to overhanging the seat in the 3rd row of my Ody.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

Thanks Andrea!