child latches?
- Thread starter danimallv
- Start date
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LATCH anchors were added in 2001
My '99 has the child latches on the 2nd row doors. Maybe it was optional?
- Thread starter
- #4
Travis351 said:
Yeah.. not the door saftey latches. I think its a newer government requirement. There are anchors in the fold of the seats where car seat latches attach to. Makes installing car seats quite a bit easier, no worries of if the lap belt is tight enough. etc.
IMHO, LATCH is not a big enough convenience to justify spending thousands of dollars more for, in order to get a newer model, if you are otherwise satisfied with a 99/00 model. For instance, the Britax convertible car seat, in forward facing mode, is easier to install w/out LATCH, than with LATCH, as long as you have a shoulder-lap belt. Rear facing seats are slightly easier to install with LATCH.
Jim_Chow
V8_Fan
I think the latches are supposed to be used with the seat facing forward. It pulls back & down on the top of the child seat, so the top won't move forward in the case of rapid deceleration. I'm using the britax in rear-facing mode right now. If you didn't have the anchors behind the 2nd seat, you could theoretically bolt some marine-grade pad-eyes through the floor (might have to drop the fuel tank to do this). Otherwise, you could use the 3rd row seat anchors if the seats aren't installed.
A good 100 series DIY latch retrofit thread
A picture posted by Mark Sr. of his system.
On my 1999 Camry the local Toyota dealership installed the newer LATCH hardware for free while it was in for other service.
A picture posted by Mark Sr. of his system.
On my 1999 Camry the local Toyota dealership installed the newer LATCH hardware for free while it was in for other service.
This is from consumer reports:
With all four models, problems occurred only when the seats were in their rear-facing position and attached with Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children, or LATCH, a universal connection system for child car seats and passenger vehicles in which connectors on the car seat attach to metal anchors in the car.
By contrast, when we connected the child car seats with car safety belts, all performed fine. So if you already own one of those car seats, you don’t need to throw it out. Just install it with the car’s own safety belt, not with the LATCH connection. Other details of our tests include the following:
• There appear to be problems in the way some car seats or their LATCH straps are designed. On multiple units, the LATCH strap broke on the Combi Avatar and the seat disconnected from the base on the Evenflo PortAbout 5. We noted a similar though less severe problem with the PortAbout 5 when we tested that model two years ago.
• A number of seats in the rear-facing position did a poor to fair job restraining the head of our test dummy from rebounding into the vehicle’s back seat after a crash.
What you can do
• Always use a car seat. All states require car seats for children under 4 years old; many require booster seats for older children. Consumers Union believes older children up to 57 inches should ride in booster seats.
• When possible, position the car seat in the center of the back seat, the safest place in a vehicle, even if that means attaching the car seat with the car safety belt and not the LATCH system.
• Never install a car seat using both the LATCH strap and the vehicle safety belt. This restricts the belts from absorbing crash energy.
With all four models, problems occurred only when the seats were in their rear-facing position and attached with Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children, or LATCH, a universal connection system for child car seats and passenger vehicles in which connectors on the car seat attach to metal anchors in the car.
By contrast, when we connected the child car seats with car safety belts, all performed fine. So if you already own one of those car seats, you don’t need to throw it out. Just install it with the car’s own safety belt, not with the LATCH connection. Other details of our tests include the following:
• There appear to be problems in the way some car seats or their LATCH straps are designed. On multiple units, the LATCH strap broke on the Combi Avatar and the seat disconnected from the base on the Evenflo PortAbout 5. We noted a similar though less severe problem with the PortAbout 5 when we tested that model two years ago.
• A number of seats in the rear-facing position did a poor to fair job restraining the head of our test dummy from rebounding into the vehicle’s back seat after a crash.
What you can do
• Always use a car seat. All states require car seats for children under 4 years old; many require booster seats for older children. Consumers Union believes older children up to 57 inches should ride in booster seats.
• When possible, position the car seat in the center of the back seat, the safest place in a vehicle, even if that means attaching the car seat with the car safety belt and not the LATCH system.
• Never install a car seat using both the LATCH strap and the vehicle safety belt. This restricts the belts from absorbing crash energy.
