Question about seat recline when installing carseats in 2015 Toyota Sienna

[marileab]

Last Saturday, we bought a 2015 Toyota Sienna. We currently have two car seats installed in it: a Britax Marathon 70 and a Safety First Complete Air 65. I have some questions about seat recline when installing carseats:

1) For the Britax Marathon 70: I've installed this seat using LATCH in one of the second row Captain's Chairs. When I read the manual for the Sienna, it said to completely recline the seat when doing a LATCH install. But that just seems so weird to me: a fully reclined seat for a LATCH install? I thought seats weren't supposed to be reclined for car seat installs. Could this be right?

2) For the Safety First Complete Air 65: I did a seatbelt install in the second row Captain's Chair. DS is 3.75 years and 38 lbs, so I he's close enough to the weight limit for a LATCH install that I think the seatbelt install is better. But I had to recline the seat one position in order to have the car seat sit on the actual seat. The seat was completely upright when I started the install, and the carseat was barely in contact with the seat and hung off a majority of it. Neither the Sienna manual nor the Safety First Complete Air 65 manual say anything about having the seat reclined when you do a seatbelt install. For the record, I say "reclined", but this looks more like a seat would regularly look. I wonder if maybe the seat backs weren't in place when we got the car since it was brand new, just off the assembly line?

Thanks!

 

[wendytthomas]

For the Marathon, yes, that's what they say.

If you call, they'll probably tell you that that's so you can find the lower anchors more easily, and you can pull the seatback more upright after you've installed the seat. But why they haven't put that last step into the manuals for years (not just the Sienna, the recline is across Toyota's board) is beyond me.

For the Complete Air, that's fine. As long as it's a position that an adult would be safe and comfortable in, that's cool for carseats generally. Most people don't use that most upright, we use one to three clicks back or so, depending on the car and clicks available.

Wendy