hello everyone. so, our infant car seat has been placed in the middle seat of my wife's 2014 RX350. we also have one of those seat protector mats underneath the infant seat. the problem is no matter how "secure" i pull on the seat belt to secure the base in, it's always kinda sort in the red/green and not fully green. we have an Uppa Baby Messa infant seat btw.

are the fasten hooks only under the right and left seats in the back? from what i could tell, i didn't find any under the middle seat.

also, how can i "lock" the seat belt in? any tips/advice is greatly appreciated.

 

The best way to secure your infant seat is to get your whole body weight on top of it, then tighten. The seat will be guaranteed not to budge any. Give that a try.

 

We have our Peg Perego rear facing infant car seat ( with adapter) installed at the middle.
We used the LATCH System.
Very stable, no movement at all

I agree with ycharlie, you have to wrestle with that car seat to install it properly.

 

I've actually used 1 latch from each side (left and right seat) on a few other cars and works just fine. However, since this isn't endorsed by the manufacturers, take this as an FYI.

Don't be afraid to put both knees on the infant seat to give it some weight. The seat will bounce back and restore itself after you take out the seat in a few months for cleaning and whatnot.

 

i use chicco keyfit30 base using latch system and works perfectly in middle

 

i'll try and put more weight into it. thanks for the replies.

 

I had my car seat inspected by the chp... they advised not using a matt under the infant seat.

 

Extract the seat belt fully and it will go into locking mode. You will hear it clicking. it will not extend back until completely retracted.
There are 4 latch hooks under the bench. You can install 2 seats, one on each side, or one in the middle. Although not recommended, you could "borrow" latch hooks from the side seats to the middle seat. I just use seat belts for two out of 3 seats.

 

Don't forget about the passive seatbelt feature in most modern cars. Should you ever experience a hard collision, everyone expects the airbags will be deployed. Front, rear, side curtains etc., depending on the direction of the blow.
The seatbelt retractors have another system incorporated to self-tighten at the instant of impact. A small caliber charge, similar to a blank bullet fires on an electrical signal. The charge rotates the retractor mechanism to an extreme tight position for just a fraction of a second.The smell of gunpowder can be noticed in most modern cars immediately after a hard hit.

 

we've got the uppababy mesa also and I could not get the seatbelt configuration to be secured enough. really put my knee into the base but it still manages to loosen up, especially when I wiggle the base to test it.

ended up using the latch connectors in the right and left passenger slots and it's been perfect.

interesting screen name btw.

 

We've tried our Chicco KeyFit infant seat in the middle, and it seemed to work ok for a while. However, I noticed that the seat base would slide around a bit during cornering and turns, even though the LATCH straps were as tight as humanly possible (also tried kneeling on the base while adjusting to really get them tight). We moved the base to one of the side seats and it works perfectly there. The problem seems to be the slight angle of the front part of the bench in the middle - the rear part of the base was snug due to the super tight LATCH straps, but the front just didn't have enough purchase on the seat. It's a little bit of a shame because the middle position was more convenient and is supposed to be safer. However, I still feel that even the side seat is pretty safe in the rolling fortress that is the RX.

 

By the way, Cremaster - I was the captain of our softball team in med school. Maybe you'd appreciate our logo. It came to me one day in anatomy lab...