Car Seat - Forward Facing Tether Help

I’ve been looking thru the forums (here and elsewhere) andhaven’t found the exact info I’m looking for. My son is 3 ½ and is already over40 lbs and 42” tall. I’ve got a Britax Marathon convertible car seat right nowbut need to move to a booster. I want to get a 5-point restraint booster thathas high weight and height limits for 5-point use. The problem I’m looking atis getting the tether tight in forward-facing mode. The Britax I have has this “versa-tether”that has to be tightened by pulling down. There’s no way to do this in theTacoma while the child seat is anchored. To install it I had to hold it up withthe Tacoma’s rear seat back down and go back and forth until I got the tetherlength right, then push the seat-back up and anchor the base. It was prettytedious. So I’m hoping to find something that will be easier to install.

My wife’s vehicle has a Recaro Convertible. The tether strappulls up to tighten and its easier to installin the Tacoma. Recaro has a 5-point booster(Performance Sport) but it only goes to 49” tall and has some bad reviews aboutthe way the seat belt pushes into the child’s back. The Diono Radian RXT looks goodbut it looks like the tether strap pulls down to install so I’m not sure itwould work forward-facing in the Tacoma. You also have to take the Diono out toadjust the harness height. I really like the look of the Britax Frontier 90 butit also has the versa-tether. Both of these boosters go to 80-90 lbs and 57”-58”tall. I haven’t found any other 5-point boosters with limits that high.

Does anyone have any experience with installing these twoseats forward facing? Does anyone have another suggestion?

Thanks for any help.

 

lowprofile, not sure about your exact question...I have the same carseat, the Britax Marathon and yes, it is a bear to get the tether tightened in front facing mode, but it is possible. You need to jockey the tether and the car seat with the Tacoma seat not being latched. Eventually, you will get it. I am guessing the same would be possible with a booster and actually easier as you won't have to deal with the top half of the carseat. And one more thing, we have all Britax stuff for our two kids, high quality and value, not sure I would really try another brand at this point.

 

Have britax as well. No fun getting that tether tight that is for sure. Havent really found an easy work around other then the way 10key posted.

 

I know exactly what you're talking about. While the forward facing car seat I have just installed is not the same as yours, I do know that cinching down the tether is not easy. What I found to work was to fold the seat forward, connect the tether, and cinch it down just enough so that the tether can be pulled on from the top of the seat. I then folded the seat back and pulled on the tether to cinch it down.

I can tell you this... I am so not looking forward to trying to remove this seat. It's going to be hard as heck. I may just wind up cutting the tether off.

David

 

x2, getting the car seat out will make getting it installed look like a breeze. Also have Britax Marathon. Good seat.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I did the same thing as you all have noted for getting the Marathon in place. (hold child seat up, tighten tether, fold seat back up, adjust and repeat...) I guess I'm mainly wondering if anyone has experience with these harness / booster seats and if they install the same.

Figured it would be nice to be sure there's not something odd like the buckle from the tether not letting the seat back lock into place. My Nissan Frontier had some weird seams in the seat belt that made it nearly impossible to get this same Marathon seat installed.