Carseat Installation Tips and Tricks

This content requires Flash

To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.

Video Transcript

Welcome back to gear daddy, I am your host daddy Troy. Today, I am with Beth Warren who is the occupant safety program coordinator for the Texas department of public safety. She is a car seat expert and she is going to tell us everything you need to know to safely install a car seat. You will not want to miss today's episode.

Okay Beth, tell us all we need to know about installing car seats.

So we have several different components to the system. The vehicle is going to have little bars down in the crank of the seat; you will actually just see the little metal pieces here.

And sometimes they are under little zippered flaps or Velcro flaps; they can be all over the place.

No, it can be all over the place. If you go to your vehicles owner manual, it is going to give you diagrams in here that show you exactly which seating positions are equipped with the lower anchors. Lower part, you could either a snap hook like this. The second option of manufacturing cab is to use a little trigger hook. So we are going to just push it on to the bar, when you push in on the red button that releases the mechanism.

Okay so this is great coniology seat.

This is the great coniology seat and it is a forward facing only seat.

Okay, you don not put it on reverse.

It is not for infants, it is not to be used rear facing. When we look at the back of the seat, we can see it has a top header with the snap hook on it. It has the lower strap that has two hooks on it, one on either side. We are going to attach one side of it into the car; we are going to attach the other side of it.

I know some dad will actually put their knee down into it, is that good or bad or -

You know you can start out by just putting your hand in it. If you can get enough pressure putting your hand in it to then tighten on the side where the adjustment is made, you do not need to put your knee in it. Once you have got it installed, you want to test it for tightness. So you are going to put your hand at the belt path, where the latch strap actually went through. You are going to try to slide it side to side. If it slides less than an inch you have got a good installation. So once you are looking at your top's header, one thing you want to look for in the owner's manual is where the actual theader anchor is. Where you are in a vehicle, the vehicle has the anchor points. And some SUVs they are actually up in the roof. They could be on a back dash. They could actually be back in the cargo area of an SUV. They could be on the vehicle seatback itself. They could be under the vehicle seat or on the frame. So if you have never looked in the owner's manual, you could be attaching it to something that was never designed to take that crash force and absorb that crash force.

Now, what are some of the most common errors that parents make, we have talked about a few so far but what are some other common things that a parent might mistakenly do.

Some common errors are parents will think if one strap is good, two is better. If I have installed it with a lower anchor system, why not take the seat bouncing it through the belt path also.

Right.

This is not a case of one is good, two is better. The belt path of this car seat is only designed to take crash force from one source. If I have got the lower anchor belt going through here, and I put the seatbelt through there, now I am putting crash force from two different sources and a belt path that was never designed to take it.

Well that is all it this week for gear daddy, thanks a lot Beth for all of the information. Remember if you have any questions at all, do not compromise your child's safety, seek out a car seat expert on great online resource would be safekids.org. A big shot at our Graco sponsor this weeks, and we will see you next time on gear daddy at dadlabs.com