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Car Seats, what inside your X?

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LuckyX

Stormtrooper X60D, Autopilot, and Hitch
Aug 11, 2016
244
121
Orange County
I'm in the market to get 3 new car seats for my X. Kids are 6, 4, & 1 yo (rear facing)

Currently have Britax advocate, boulevard, & marathon in wife's car.

50/50 between getting Britax (marathon) or Diono (RXT) price virtually identical.

Pros and cons to each.....in your X
 
I take delivery of my X60D next week but I did take a X on a 24 hour test drive. OA let me family test it so I tried out a few of our carseats.

Our Diono Radian which is pretty much the same as the RXT didn't fit the best. It's slim and tall so without the removable headrest, you'll get a gap behind the seat and it sits funny. I'll have to try it again as I prefer these because I have a 7 seater and I have 2 of them. Only one tether and I didn't have time to play with how it'll sit on the seat backs. It kept slipping the first time I tried it.

So I tried our Britax Marathon and Boulevard they were a perfect fit. Short enough to fit under the headrest ok and also the dual tether so that it sat nicely on both sides of the seat.

I'll try the Diono's again when I get the X and will report back.

Check out this existing thread. Anyone using 3 car seats (Diono RadianRXTs?)
 
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In the third row I have a Britax Boulevard for my 3 year old (front facing) and a Britax Frontier for my 7 year old.

They fit a bit tightly in the third row but do fine. Only thing is it distributes the weight to the edges of the seat so right now the car doesn't register that they are in them when they are in the car.
 
We have twin toddlers and put car seats in the second row, outboard seats in a 7-seater X. When we first got the car, we were rear facing with Clek Foonfs. As with almost any car, rear facing child seats will really limit the space available for the driver and front passenger. It also makes getting into the third row impossible since the seats can't really move forward enough. I switched to the Diono Radian 120s rear facing. To get an acceptable seat angle with those, you need the foam spacer they sell, but even still, front seat movement space is limited. Now they're both front facing in the Diono Radian 120s and everything is great. There's enough room to access the third row if desired. We put them in the third row once so adults could ride in the second row and that worked out fine too. We specifically chose both the Clek Foonf and Diono Raidan 120s for their three across capability since we plan on having one more.
 
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Anyone have any thoughts or theories on where the safest location is in the X for a single child seat (front facing)? second row or third row? Passenger side or drivers side?

we've been trying to figure that out as well.

The manual states that the outter seats are safer; I wrote tesla inquiring about rear facing seats because the manual is surprisingly vague about them.

Our car seat manual states it should not touch the seat it sits behind (if behind the passenger or driver) so we got the 7 seater so we can place the car seat in the 2nd row middle.

According to tesla they aren't recommending the middle seat for rear facing , instead they recommend the outer seats, its a conflict between tesla and the car seat manufacturer atm for us.
 
Middle seats (middle second row) aren't the safest for a few reasons. In the case of a bad accident and safety restraint failure, the car seat placed in the middle seat second row can become a projectile for the other occupants with no seats to stop trajectory. Also, the middle seat in the second row doesn't have latch, so it's shoulder belt and tether install only. For a single child seat front facing, I think either of the second row outboard seats are the safest. If you're driving alone, I would use the passenger side (right) second row outboard seat so you can reach the child when safely stopped. This will also allow the driver the most options for seat placement. If you're driving with a passenger in the front seat, I think the left outboard second row is the best so the passenger can tend to the child.
I'm not aware of many differences in safety between the third and second row since both have latch. The only differences I can think of is in the case of rear collisions; placing the child in the second row allows for more crumple space behind them.
 
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I ended up buying 1 Diono RXT and will test out which works best (RXT vs marathon, rear and forward facing). I bought the prince lionheart seat protectors to test. I plan on trying out Diono and Britax seat protectors.

Reusing my Britax seatback protectors ($16 for 2) since I can't justify $600 to film protect the seat backs.

I take delivery 9/24 so by Sunday I'll report back
 
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Center seat is safest by far for children 0 - 3 years. Risk of injury is 43% lower in the center seat compared to an outer seat. Source

Also LATCH is not inherently safer than using a seat belt, but it may be more difficult to get a good installation with a seat belt. If you do it right though, the benefits of the center seat far outweigh the benefits of using LATCH in an outer seat.

We have a Graco Size4Me rear facing for our 19 month old in the center seat second row of our 7 seater X. I am still able to slide the outer seats forward to access the third row, but it is very tight.
 
Ricaro Marathon and the Nuna Pipa. They've both been great. Easy install and take out, also great with the strollers and such.

As for the safest location, Dazureus has some good points but you're wrong. Look up the safety tests and information from the official testers and NHTSA. They say the middle is actually the best, because when the seats are installed CORRECTLY, it provides the child with the most distance between solid material which could bend in from the crash. This means you would use the iso flex of the other seats if it is a single child, or belt with anchor. Either way though, not really feasible with multiple kids due to size of the car seats.
 
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What pad/seat protector do you guys use under your car seats? I have the ultrawhite perforated seats so I want to be sure to protect them from the car seat.

Using the Diono seat protector here, works very well.

Also Diono Cambria booster here, photo attached. It's OK, seat fits well with the X seats except it is a little difficult to buckle our daughter in. She can un-buckle fine, but pulling the belt around is tight. The narrow Tesla seatbelt doesn't help either.
 

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Anyone using any type of adapter for the seatbelt buckle? I'm not to that point yet but that bucket is practically flush with the seat so I would imagine it would be tough for the young one to reach down to buckle in or out.

I like my Diono pad. It's just the half pad and might consider getting the full one to protect the seat back but it's the perfect size for Diono seats and it doesn't slide. Does the job of protecting the seats for indentations but not too well for a lot of liquids.
 
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Do you have the child protection lock turned on in your vehicles? I had it on in my S, because my son could reach the handle when strapped in his seat. But on the X, the standard position for the 2nd row is too far back for him to reach the B pillar button for the FWD.
 
So to report back about RXT or marathon.

Diono RXT is the 3rd row, good space for 2 side my side, allowing to add the cup holder in between them. With lionheart seat mats cover the existing 2 holders. The high backs are so high that I placed a small cardboard/foam piece so the pressure would cut into the 3rd row headrest. Latch system works well, just tough to tighten as I had to sit in their seat as well as force them down with my knee. I weigh 155lbs. Finally got them not to wiggle. Seat angles are great as the trip home this evening they both knocked out and the bobble heads rested nicely on the supports vs flopping forward.

Britax in 3rd row, super easy with their click tight system. Both install in about 15mins vs RXT about 45mins. Side by side it's right.

2nd row.
Britax behind passenger, less than 10 mins vs 30mins for RXT (I'll explain more later). Passenger seat push up a lot but will still allow someone 5'10" to fit but tight.

RXT - passenger seat is move up as close to windshield as possible and nearly tilt forward as well. Wife is 5'2" said it is not comfortable and sat in the empty 2nd row. Install, with latch could not get it right no matter what I tried. Then having to use the top tether and passenger seat track tether to finally get the wobbling to go away and secure other wise the RXT was going back. Leg room is much better read facing for our princess vs Britax.

After about 2+ hours of car seat music chairs, we went with 3 RXTs.

Pictures to come.
 
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