Anyone have any information on LATCH system weight limits?

[porenn]

I figured if anyone did, it would be this forum.

I have a 4 year old in a TrueFit, in a Honda Oddysey with a LATCH system in the middle seats. Recently, at playgroup, one of the moms mentioned that the LATCH system itself has a weight limit, for instance, the limit could be 40 pounds and that includes the weight of the child plus the weight of the carseat. So, for my 36 pound child, and her 15 pound carseat, the LATCH anchors could fail in the event of an accident. Securing the seat via seatbelt is the solution. Securing by seatbelt never seems to get the carseat as secure as the LATCH, even with the safety catch and the belt lock.

Where can I find information on this, to verify that it's true? There is no mention of it in my owner's manual, and a call to Honda Customer Service didn't yield any answers either.

[chickabiddy]

Honda has a limit of 40#, child only, on its LATCH anchors.  You're good for another four pounds.
 

[MrsHin2002]

How can I find out the latch limits for my '08 Santa Fe? Our son is 5, 38 lbs and still harnessed. Never thought about a latch limit...

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[chickabiddy]

Hyundai defers to the car seat manufacturer.  What seat are you using?

[sahmmie]

What would be the latch limit for a Radian in a Ford Explorer? 

[chickabiddy]

Originally Posted by sahmmie 

What would be the latch limit for a Radian in a Ford Explorer? 

48#, weight of child only.

[sahmmie]

Thanks chicabiddy? Where do you find this information?

I also need to know the latch limit for the Radian in a Subaru Forester.

[chickabiddy]

I'm a CPST and I own the manual published by Safe Ride News that lists LATCH limits.

Subaru is 60 pounds, weight of child plus carseat.  I think the Radian is about 22 pounds, so you could use it with a child up to 38 pounds.

[AmandaT]

In the first poster's case (this won't come up for me for quite a few years  ) would it be safe to harness with the seatbelt for weight limit purposes and use the LATCH system as a secondary to get the car seat in as tightly as you can? Or is it a bad idea to use the LATCH system at all over the weight limit because it could snap? 

[chickabiddy]

No, you cannot use both seatbelt and LATCH.  Ever.  That could cause both systems to fail and it would be catastrophic.  Seatbelt installs are perfectly safe.

[sahmmie]

Thanks so much chicabiddy. I need to get my son out of his radian in his dad's car, or install it using seatbelt. He's 43 lbs!! Yikes!

[llwr]

I'm so confused.  I've never heard about latch limits before.  I haven't seen these warnings either in my carseat or vehicle manuals.  We have an 05 corolla.  It looks like something changed in cars made after Sept 05 to accomate heavier limits.  Is this true?   From what I can tell, Toyota defers to the carseat manufacturer.  We have an Evenflo Triumph Advance with a weight limit of 50.   DD is probably pushing 45 now.  Do I need to redo this with the seatbelt?  They're making so many latch carseats up to 65+ now that this should really be addressed somewhere.  I can recheck my manuals, but I'm almost positive there's no mention of it.

[chickabiddy]

Most Evenflo seats have a 48# LATCH limit.

[MrsGregory]

chickabiddy, may I avail myself of your expertise? We have a Subaru Outback (the smaller sport one, forget the year) and Little Miss is rear-facing. The weight limit on her seat is 60 lbs. including the seat and child, so the seat is 22.8, I'll go with 23 lbs., and she's got to be 37 pounds before we need to stop using LATCH and use the seatbelt install; So here's my questions; 1) The LATCH system in our car didn't/couldn't work with our seat (Britax Boulevard), so there are anchors under the front passenger seat that was used instead. In other words, the seat is anchored front and back, but the front anchor is a metal part of the front seat. This was commonly suggested fix for this car-seat/car combination online. Is this the worst thing ever?
2) At 37 pounds, when the LATCH system is outgrown for her, would you turn her, or would you wait until she hit 40 pounds? She's short and chunky, but small all-around, and we joke, but she may well be 4 or 5 years old before she hits 40 pounds. We're prepared to keep her rear-facing for a good long time, but what is more important? Weight? Head-to-body ratio?

[chickabiddy]

First, I'm assuming you have the new Boulevard with the 40# RFing limit?  Obviously, if yours is a classic model with a 35# limit, she needs to be turned then.

The tether arrangement you have seems fine.

If she's 4yo or 5yo when she hits 37#, I have no opinion about turning her.  Do what works best for your family.  A 4yo is very safe forward-facing.  (As to what's more important, IMO, it goes: age, head/body ratio, weight.  I'm fine with a small 4yo forward-facing.  I'd do whatever it took to keep a 39# 2yo rear-facing.)

[MrsGregory]

Yes, we have the new 40 lbs. RFing model... the one with the tasty chest-strap positioning pieces. Yeah, my Little Miss totally ate those.
Other than that, we love it. It's so much more convenient than her baby bucket, which I waited forever for her to outgrow.


I appreciate your input on when to FF her. We'd been thinking we would wait until 40lbs., but she's 14 months and is still just over 20lbs, and is consistently at the bottom 10% of the charts for height. From here, apparently, I can only expect her growth to slow, with all the running and being too busy to nurse or eat. So we had started to picture a 3rd grader, RFing... it didn't look good in our minds. Thanks for the advice!

[llwr]

Thanks so much.  I never would have happened across this if I hadn't seen it here.  It really irks me that this info isn't in my manuals.

[Skippy918]

Does the 40lb limit apply to the top tether strap also or just the bottom anchors?

[brigala]

Originally Posted by llwr 

I'm so confused.  I've never heard about latch limits before.  I haven't seen these warnings either in my carseat or vehicle manuals. 

You're not alone. At all. The whole issue is extremely confusing. There are some changes coming in LATCH rules which should help reduce confusion in the future (whether it will help or not remains to be seen). The whole LATCH thing is very confusing and nobody quite knows why so many vehicle manufacturers somehow don't think it's important to put their LATCH limits in the manual and yet they're so adamant that they must be followed. 

Originally Posted by Skippy918 

Does the 40lb limit apply to the top tether strap also or just the bottom anchors?

Another hot button issue. The official stance in the US is that unless the vehicle manufacturer states otherwise, yes, they apply. In Canada, all FF harnessed seats must be top tethered, and so they don't apply. There is no difference between top tethers in the US and Canada. There are no known cases of top tethers failing in Canada because they were used beyond the weight limit. The difference is that in Canada, the government is willing to take responsibility for the very unlikely event that unforeseen issues might cause a problem if the top tether were to fail, and in the US nobody's willing to take that responsibility. 

As a CPST I have been taught that I need to tell you (assuming you're in the US) to discontinue the use of the top tether after its stated weight limit.

As a parent, I top tether my forward facing seats if I have an anchor available. Period.

[Skippy918]

Thanks! My car manual didn't specify a weight limit on the tethers. It's a year 2000 make so it doesn't have bottom anchors. I use the seat belt install with the top tether for DS. He's maybe 35lbs. I wonder if car manufacturers haven't caught up to the extended car seat use. Back when my car was made, I doubt there were many harnessed seats that went past a 40lb weight limit.