Best car seats for older SUV (1980's Toyota Landcruiser)

[Carlos]

Hi, I own a 1982 Toyota Landcruiser SUV that only has lap belts in the back seat. Which baby/child car seat works best for these types of lap belts on a bench seat? I would like to find one that is a convertible-type car seat. Recommendations appreciated!

 

[MelodyoftheForest]

All car seats in the US can be installed with a lap only belt, so that makes things easier! What kind of lap belts are they, the kind with a tail that you pull to tighten? If so, they are usually pretty easy to install seats with.

The big consideration is that you won't have top tethers when you turn your child forward-facing, and you can't use a belt-positioning booster with lap-only belts. So, it's probably best to keep your child rear-facing for as long as possible. How old, tall, and heavy is your child? There are multiple seats that rear-face up to 50 pounds and are quite tall, so many kids can rear-face until school age if needed. Let us know your child's stats and your budget, and we can give you more specific recommendations!

 

[ketchupqueen]

I would point out that there's an available low cost retrofit program. You can read about it here; I would recommend doing it sooner rather than later as Toyota only renews the program a year or two at a time.

Here's the CarSeatBlog recommendation list. One thing to note is that with lap only belts, a lockoff or tightening feature is not really of any help.

I personally have never had an issue installing seats in a Toyota of that era as long as the belts are in good condition (have them inspected if they haven't already been replaced.) They are usually the kind that lock automatically at the retractor when you buckle. You can easily get a tight fit by buckling, checking how much movement there is at the belt path, unbuckling, letting it retract the estimated amount of slack you need to remove, and then putting weight in the seat to force it to buckle again. (Sometimes an extra pair of hands helps with this.) The only thing I would recommend avoiding is a seat with a low or small belt path like the Diono seats or Scenara NEXT- that can run into the "dead zone" where the belt will not lock.