Radian without top tether

[drjanetm]

Just interested in people's thoughts on this issue.

I have twin boys who are nearly 4 (but already bigger than an average 4yo - definitely tick all the boxes for fitting into boosters).

We are about to buy a new car, and will need to use one of our Radians in the 3rd row, which doesn't have top tether anchor points.

My options are:

(1) Use Radian without top tether
(2) Use a booster instead
(3) Use the r/f tether loop around the vehicle's seat attachment to create an anchor point - but obviously the physics acting on this point would be different to if used r/f.

What do you think?

(My husband thinks I'm being nuts worrying about whether car seats are going to fit into a vehicle, but I can't preach child restraint safety without practising it myself.)

 

[LISmama810]

I'd rather have an untethered seat than a 4-year-old in a booster or a made-up tether point.

Are you sure the third row has no anchors? What vehicle is it?

They can't both be in the second row?

 

[Unregistered]

It's a Subaru Liberty Exiga wagon. (We're in Australia - not sure if that's available in the US!)

They can't both be in the second row, because we need permanent access to the 3rd row (5 children), so I need to be able to fold the second row passenger side seat down for access, which means I can't have the two Radians tethered side-by-side (I tried ). There are definitely no third-row anchor points (I'm a seasoned anchor point finder, having had all 5 kids in anchored seats at one point!).

I lean the same way as you, my only issue being that it is more obvious that it's a non-approved seat in Australia if there is no tether done up. But I'm happy to do it knowing that the seats are tested and approved without the top tether.

 

[drjanetm]

Weird, that post was mine. Don't know why I showed up as unregistered!