NEED help with child seat information

[craezie]

We are shopping for a new car to accommodate our third child, and I am desperately trying to avoid the minivan or giant SUV route. We did the preliminary shopping and test driving of 4 crossover/ midside SUVs, and found that only the CX-9 and the Pilot meet our minimum criteria.

I very, very much want a CX-9. The drive is so much sportier, and it doesn't look like a big shiny brick However, the car in general is way behind in accommodating child seats and this is a huge issue for us. Because of the lack of latch and tethers at all in the third row, two of our child seats MUST go in the second row. We can't do all 3 in the second row, however, because we extended rear face for safety.

Unfortunately, the center middle is much smaller than the Pilot, and no latch. However, I can make it work IF we can fit a rear facing skinny infant base and then later a rear facing skinny convertible like Radian or Complete Air while still maintaining enough room to slide the side seat forward for third row access. This is non-negotiable. So I have two questions that I haven't been able to find anywhere on the net:

1) what is the width of the center middle seat portion?
2) where are the seat buckles and/or latch points (Madza allows borrowing) located relative to the center? In other words, assuming we can find something narrow enough, can the center carseat be attached and still physically allow the side portion to move forward?

 

[theisen_4]

I don't have answers to you questions, but you may want to read this thread about 3 child seats in the second row:

http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123783535-3-child-seats-in-2nd-row

Good luck on your decision!

 

[IslandTractor]

I can answer one of your questions. The center seat belt for the middle row comes down from the ceiling behind that row and has two attachment points, right and left. The left attachment can be left in place (in fact it requires a key to unlock it) and the right attachment point works just like a regular seat belt.

The furthest right seat is the one that moves to allow access to the third row. It works independent of the middle seat belt status so that should not be an issue.

If I were you I'd take the car seats you intend to use and see if they fit. Buy something you might use in the future and use it at the dealership just to check...it will be essentially unused so you can just return it to the store afterwards as a return.

 

[djc6]

You need to take the car seats and check the installation on a real cx-9 to be sure.

We're going to have two car seats in the back soon, I assumed they'd both have to be outboard because of how small the middle seat is. You can forget about accessing the 3rd row.

This might be an indicator.. the 2nd row only seats two in some countries:

http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123772047-Mazda-CX-9-with-6-seats-only!!!

You should ask on http://www.car-seat.org/ and see what other cx-9 owners are doing, or how three across works in the Honda Pilot.

 

[vikefan7]

If you're able to put a booster seat on the passenger side middle you can access the rear seat. I just don't know if you can fit your three seats there. Someone else did, I think the last poster put the link to that post.

 

[T.Narley]

3 seats will fit fine, but you wont be able to slide them forward enough to easily access the 3rd row. All car seats (with the exception of boosters for older kids) will stop the seatback from folding forward, which is essential for 3rd row access.