Putting the kids car seat back in the left rear seat I noticed the latch bar on the back of the seat is loose. Moves side to side and back and forth. If you pull on the bar you can see the whole back of the seat flex. Something appears loose or broken. How do you get the carpet piece off the back of the seat to inspect the stuff?? I pried on it a little but it seemed solid and I didn't want to break it. Just doing that seems to have loosened the carpet piece a bit. I know I should just take it to the dealer, but if it's easy enough to just tighten a bolt I'd like to take care of it.
Rear seat car seat latch loose
- Thread starter SWTrail
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DesertCanyons
New member
Loose car seat anchor
It's under warranty. Let Toyota fix it. You're strapping your child's car seat down to that. You don't want any malfunctions because you tried to fix it yourself.
I know it's time consuming to take your car in and leave it while you go off to work, but there's no way around the inconvenience. If you're due for one of their free oil changes then you can combine the two services.
Good luck with it. :biggrin2:
It's under warranty. Let Toyota fix it. You're strapping your child's car seat down to that. You don't want any malfunctions because you tried to fix it yourself.
I know it's time consuming to take your car in and leave it while you go off to work, but there's no way around the inconvenience. If you're due for one of their free oil changes then you can combine the two services.
Good luck with it. :biggrin2:
Yeah I'll call Monday. I just changed the oil myself so that's good. I'm hoping it's just something loose and not a broken seat back frame cause that'd piss me off pretty good...no idea how that would happen.
Cymon
New member
As [MENTION=115572]DesertCanyons[/MENTION] said...dealer fix. Don't mess with safety stuff especially child safety. Make sure it is done right to manufacturer specs. All car companies will make sure something like that is fixed right or replaced ASAP because if they don't it is a potential lawsuit and safety black eye. And that = loss of $!
Yeah I agree for something like this the dealer needs to do it...especially with only 8000 miles on it. I was just pissed and frustrated when I found it and wanted to fixed now. We swapped car seats around yesterday and that's when I noticed it. I can't imagine what caused it as the rear strap puts the least tension on it. I'm guessing it's a factory defect and we missed it on the original install. I had the driver power seat track replaced for play at 6000 miles, so my luck with seats is maddening.
Kinda annoying finding stuff wrong on a new car. Also had the tailgate garnish rubbing thru the paint in one spot. Dealer tried to fixed it with the seat track. Not in love with the solution. Probably take it apart and redo it myself.
Kinda annoying finding stuff wrong on a new car. Also had the tailgate garnish rubbing thru the paint in one spot. Dealer tried to fixed it with the seat track. Not in love with the solution. Probably take it apart and redo it myself.
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Dealer looked at it yesterday. Didn't even bother to take it apart. Said there was nothing to tighten in there and they ordered a new seat back. Which is good, but a bummer all the same.
They also said the wear mark on my front seat is normal and Toyota wouldn't although them to do anything. The other dealer had offered to order a new seat cover, but I never heard anything again. Dunno if it's backordered or they didn't actually do it. Haven't had time to check. Is this wear fairly common?
They also said the wear mark on my front seat is normal and Toyota wouldn't although them to do anything. The other dealer had offered to order a new seat cover, but I never heard anything again. Dunno if it's backordered or they didn't actually do it. Haven't had time to check. Is this wear fairly common?
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kevinmai712
New member
I also have the same wear marks on the driver side
stephen3484
New member
Just to correct something here. You want the car seat snug but not tightened as much as possible. The difference in energy absorbing slack in the seat fastening belts between snug and "as tight as possible" is the key. Much the same reason seats belt mechanisms will give slightly during an accident. And yes, you have give in the belt material itself, too.
SWTrail, how old is your kiddo? At a certain weight, once foreward facing, both car seats we have say to not use the latch system anymore and use the seatbelt run through the car seat.
My son is turned 3 in Jan and is roughly 35-ish lbs. Now our new little that'll be here in about 3-4 weeks, we will obviously be using a different seat with LATCH system. I'll definitely be checking my 4Runner latches now!!
What is your definition of snug? I have always read to tighten the car seat down as much as possible on installation when using LATCH. If I am doing something wrong I will correct it. I just read a few articles again to make sure I remembered correctly what I had read a few years ago before I started installing them in our vehicles. You should not be able to move the seat more than 1 inch side to side after you have it tightened down and I believe less than 1 inch forward.
The instructions for the seats in our vehicles start out describing how to use the LATCH system when placing the car seat in the forward facing position. They have instructions for using the seat belt system next. It may differ from seat to seat but I would think almost all seats can be used with the LATCH system in the forward facing position.
I will be checking our seats again when I get home this evening.
Shouldn't the harness belts going around the child be what is snug to allow slight movement? Maybe you are talking about the harness and not the latch that attaches to the seat??
Yeah that wear mark appears to be where the fabric creases when you exit the vehicle. Not much you can do short of changing the way you get in and out. Was just kinda surprised to see that white line appear after only about 6-7k miles.
Our oldest is 5 and he's in a booster bottom seat and normal seat belt. Our 3 year old (well 3 in April) is in a forward facing convertible seat latched in and then she likes to alternate between harness and car seat belt. At this point she's big enough that we could just start using the car seat with the car seat belt and stop using the latch. Which is what we'll until they get the part in. ETA is mid March.
While I hate having the seat back pulled and taken apart and we probably don't need the latch anymore, I still feel it should be fixed.
Edit: I tried to post a video of the latch and what I'm seeing, but apparently it's too large a file.
Our oldest is 5 and he's in a booster bottom seat and normal seat belt. Our 3 year old (well 3 in April) is in a forward facing convertible seat latched in and then she likes to alternate between harness and car seat belt. At this point she's big enough that we could just start using the car seat with the car seat belt and stop using the latch. Which is what we'll until they get the part in. ETA is mid March.
While I hate having the seat back pulled and taken apart and we probably don't need the latch anymore, I still feel it should be fixed.
Edit: I tried to post a video of the latch and what I'm seeing, but apparently it's too large a file.
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stephen3484
New member
Seems we're on the same page here. I've just seen people's car seat installs that really do tighten the base so tight the it sucks the car seat into the seat at of axis angles, etc. So that's just what I envisioned when I heard "as tight as possible". The movement tolerances you mentioned are how I have mine installed. The forward facing LATCH vs seat belt is a matter of child weight as I understand it.
SWTrail, sorry for the slight topic deviation here. Regarding your seat, I try stepping on the rocker sill while getting out to lift myself off the seat to prevent wear on the outer seat bottom bolster. My Trail has no running boards so there's nothing to step on otherwise. That said, I have my RCI sliders with the step plate on order.
My wife or most passengers just slide out of the seat and it drives me insane. I want to put a jar into on my dash that people must put $5 in every time the slide down the side of the seat so my seat recover is funded when the fabric wears away.
Haha...wear jar. I like it. Unfortunately I'd be broke as I'm bad about sliding out.
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