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Shop willing to install rear facing seats in Los Angeles area?
- Thread starter Vinc
- Start date
I would say it is statistics. They are the safest in most scenarios, but the unsafest under very specific circumstances...
TM Parts
Teslamotive
My guess is the "safest seat in the car" claims are because yes, the kids would be better off in those seats in a frontal collision, which seem to be the most common, compared to any other seat in the car. No doubt there.
Here are some of my problems with that argument.
First, and most obvious, not all collisions are frontal collisions. So, there's an immediately obvious roll of the dice there.
Second, in every single wrecked Tesla vehicle I've dealt with over the past several years the second row seats were virtually undamaged (obviously excluding a fire damaged one I got at some point). That's saying a lot given the extent of damage I've seen in some of these cars. IMO, this would make the 2nd row the safest place the be in the car.
Finally, and probably most importantly, keep in mind that the space that the kids put their feet with these rear seats is specifically designed as a crumple zone for a rear impact. That "reinforcement" piece doesn't change this. It mounts to the rear rails, which are made to crumple and absorb impacts. At best, if the reinforcement is hit at all (Tesla's are pretty low compared to some vehicles and I've seen this crumple zone completely avoided several times in rear impact cases), it helps distribute the impact between both rails... but in most case I've seem it just does nothing and rips off one rail or the other in a significant impact.
Edit: And maybe I'm crazy... but
Story time. I've actually gotten several Model S wrecks that went off mountains... and one of these flipped end-over-end down the mountain side. The car was so mangled it was one of the cases where I just had to reach out to the original owner and get the story if I could, and see how everyone fared. After getting in touch and explaining who I was and such, the owner somewhat reluctantly told me how it happened. They actually were driving with FOUR PEOPLE in the car, one of which was a 10 year-old in the back. They apparently lost control at a relatively low speed after trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle encroaching on their lane. The car went nose first off a steep escarpment, continued and gained a bit of speed until it hit some foliage that caused the car to leap and flip end over end, landing upside down on the roof, rolling at least one more time, and then falling a significant distance down another steep drop to land right on the nose of the car finally falling to a "normal" position. *checks notes...* Judging by the look of the vehicle, this would seem to check out. We cut tree branches out that were lodged into the body of the car all over the place.
After the vehicle came to a stop, the entire hatchback was just ripped off and gone. But no one was seriously hurt! A few cuts and bruises, but everyone actually got out of the car mostly on their own with no serious injuries. After a bit of futile hunting for cell service to call for help, they all actually made their way slowly back up towards the road. Turns out another vehicle had witnessed the event and had already called for help, which met them part way back up the side of the mountain. When the first responders saw them, then saw the vehicle down a ways, they expressed "a bit of disbelief" to the fact that everyone walked away mostly unharmed.. so unharmed that they were hiking up to the road on their own. Turns out, they were told that in nearly the same spot, some months prior, another car suffered a similar fate with a less than ideal outcome (both occupants found dead in the vehicle).
I'm honestly surprised this didn't end up as one of the official promotional Tesla owner stories, but since I was asked not to share the vehicle photos and specific details alongside their account of the incident publicly (which I'll certainly respect) my guess is that they gave Tesla a similar response. Oh, and they have a Model X now.
As related to the 3rd row discussion....... the 3rd row was basically gone in this case. Extreme example, for sure, but the main point is that even in this example the rest of the passenger compartment was comparably fine while the 3rd row area, designed as a crumple zone, did exactly that and crushed to nothing to absorb impacts. Oh, and this was an earlier vehicle which had the rear reinforcement pre-installed despite not having the actual 3rd row seat option.
And no, the battery didn't burst into flames or anything even after all of that. The underside of the casing was significantly impacted multiple times, but it held up pretty well.
More tangent, but, I've actually been to the area where this wreck happened since that discussion, and there's now a barrier erected to protect drivers from such an incident. I don't want to get into a "Tesla saved my life" type thing here, but I'd be quite surprised if this would have been a survivable incident in many other vehicles, let a lone a walk away under your own power type result. I didn't go down the side, but I'd have to guess that vehicle went down at least a couple hundred feet before coming to a stop.
Anyway... do what you want with these 3rd row seats. Most I can is provide info... and the info I have at hand points to a resounding don't use them.
Here are some of my problems with that argument.
First, and most obvious, not all collisions are frontal collisions. So, there's an immediately obvious roll of the dice there.
Second, in every single wrecked Tesla vehicle I've dealt with over the past several years the second row seats were virtually undamaged (obviously excluding a fire damaged one I got at some point). That's saying a lot given the extent of damage I've seen in some of these cars. IMO, this would make the 2nd row the safest place the be in the car.
Finally, and probably most importantly, keep in mind that the space that the kids put their feet with these rear seats is specifically designed as a crumple zone for a rear impact. That "reinforcement" piece doesn't change this. It mounts to the rear rails, which are made to crumple and absorb impacts. At best, if the reinforcement is hit at all (Tesla's are pretty low compared to some vehicles and I've seen this crumple zone completely avoided several times in rear impact cases), it helps distribute the impact between both rails... but in most case I've seem it just does nothing and rips off one rail or the other in a significant impact.
Edit: And maybe I'm crazy... but
Story time. I've actually gotten several Model S wrecks that went off mountains... and one of these flipped end-over-end down the mountain side. The car was so mangled it was one of the cases where I just had to reach out to the original owner and get the story if I could, and see how everyone fared. After getting in touch and explaining who I was and such, the owner somewhat reluctantly told me how it happened. They actually were driving with FOUR PEOPLE in the car, one of which was a 10 year-old in the back. They apparently lost control at a relatively low speed after trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle encroaching on their lane. The car went nose first off a steep escarpment, continued and gained a bit of speed until it hit some foliage that caused the car to leap and flip end over end, landing upside down on the roof, rolling at least one more time, and then falling a significant distance down another steep drop to land right on the nose of the car finally falling to a "normal" position. *checks notes...* Judging by the look of the vehicle, this would seem to check out. We cut tree branches out that were lodged into the body of the car all over the place.
After the vehicle came to a stop, the entire hatchback was just ripped off and gone. But no one was seriously hurt! A few cuts and bruises, but everyone actually got out of the car mostly on their own with no serious injuries. After a bit of futile hunting for cell service to call for help, they all actually made their way slowly back up towards the road. Turns out another vehicle had witnessed the event and had already called for help, which met them part way back up the side of the mountain. When the first responders saw them, then saw the vehicle down a ways, they expressed "a bit of disbelief" to the fact that everyone walked away mostly unharmed.. so unharmed that they were hiking up to the road on their own. Turns out, they were told that in nearly the same spot, some months prior, another car suffered a similar fate with a less than ideal outcome (both occupants found dead in the vehicle).
I'm honestly surprised this didn't end up as one of the official promotional Tesla owner stories, but since I was asked not to share the vehicle photos and specific details alongside their account of the incident publicly (which I'll certainly respect) my guess is that they gave Tesla a similar response. Oh, and they have a Model X now.
As related to the 3rd row discussion....... the 3rd row was basically gone in this case. Extreme example, for sure, but the main point is that even in this example the rest of the passenger compartment was comparably fine while the 3rd row area, designed as a crumple zone, did exactly that and crushed to nothing to absorb impacts. Oh, and this was an earlier vehicle which had the rear reinforcement pre-installed despite not having the actual 3rd row seat option.
And no, the battery didn't burst into flames or anything even after all of that. The underside of the casing was significantly impacted multiple times, but it held up pretty well.
More tangent, but, I've actually been to the area where this wreck happened since that discussion, and there's now a barrier erected to protect drivers from such an incident. I don't want to get into a "Tesla saved my life" type thing here, but I'd be quite surprised if this would have been a survivable incident in many other vehicles, let a lone a walk away under your own power type result. I didn't go down the side, but I'd have to guess that vehicle went down at least a couple hundred feet before coming to a stop.
Anyway... do what you want with these 3rd row seats. Most I can is provide info... and the info I have at hand points to a resounding don't use them.
Eevee
Member
I don't see anything mentioned here about heat and safety of those seats. There's lots of evidence that suggests those seats overheat very easily.
Brando
Active Member
Can someone please provide me the name or phone number for a shop that can do install the 3rd row seat in Los Angeles area. Much appreciated
