Seat belt/LATCH install question

[aym4Him]

Hi all,

DH went to BBB the other day to test out a couple of seats in his car. The manager ended up being the person who helped him and she was talking about ease of use with installs and LATCH. One of the seats had a trickier connector and she said you can just leave it connected to the lower anchors and use the seat belt when the child is too heavy to use LATCH exclusively.

Is that true? I always read use one or the other but not both??

FWIW, the seats he was testing were the FR85 and GN.

 

[Jeanum]

You're on the right track because it's not true in harnessed mode for either of those carseats, nor for other harnessed carseat models - you need to use either the vehicle seatbelt to install or the lower LATCH anchors, but not both installation methods at the same time in harnessed mode. Once the vehicle's lower LATCH anchor weight limit or the carseat's specified lower LATCH anchor weight limit is exceeded in harnessed mode, whichever is reached first, then it's necessary to use the vehicle seatbelt to install in harnessed mode. In belt positioning booster mode, both the Frontier and the Nautilus do allow using LATCH while the vehicle seatbelt is used to restrain the boostered child, so maybe LATCHing in booster mode is what the store staffer was meaning or thinking of? LATCHing a belt positioning booster or combination seat model that allows LATCHing in booster mode primarily serves to keep the booster from becoming a projectile during a crash or sudden stop when it's unoccupied.