Sort of off topic, sort of on...New Car

[catfeet]

I'm posting here because I've got a question and some nerves. We're buying a new car today. Our Pontiac Aztec sprung a leak in the gas tank yesterday and it was the maintence straw that broke our backs.

We'd been looking at the Honda Odessy & had decided to buy one in Sept/October when we had some more money coming in, but this last maintence problem just made the decision to us. The gas tank on a 3yo car shouldn't just spring a leak, let alone all of the other maintence issues we've had. I jokingly said to dh that maybe we should just go do it, and he looked back at me and said "I trust your judgement; go buy a car tomorrow!" GAH! If that's not enough to put the fear of god into someone, what is? Now, if anything goes wrong with this, it'll be MY fault, not OUR fault! GAH! (this is the nerves talking here...I don't usually spend 22k at a single go! Makes me a bit verbose...)

Anyway, on to the question. The Odessy has 2 bucket seats in the rear and a jump seat between them. Does anyone know what the best seat placement in the Odessy is? Ds1 is 3.5 ff in a Wizard, ds2 is 13 mo rf in a Combi Avatar, and yes, with the belt; not latch. The seats in this car move, they slide sideways on a track, so what is prefered carseat placement?

Thanks,
Ann

[Joolsplus2]

That third seat in the middle doesn't have LATCH (it may have a tether...I should know that...eeek!), and it's quite narrow...you might even end up taking it out for now so you have more of a path to the third row? At any rate, you'll be playing and playing with your seating arrangement, because minivans are big fun! There's really no particular safety advantage to one position over another, particularly with all the side curtain airbags back there, so you can put seats wherever they work best... I had my ds on one side because of school dropoffs, then switched them, just for fun, in summer time... whatever works best with your particular situation is just fine, and installing seats will be a breeze in the Ody! www.odyclub.com has a bunch of Ody obsessed geeks, if you want to visit there and see what's up, particularly to clear up the middle seating position issue (Shellebelle is the expert there, I only pop in sometimes ;) )
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 2 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx

[Maayan]

Let me try to make life easy on you, I just bought a used 2004 Odessy last week. The two buckets have latch and the center back has a teather. In all the 2005 mini vans I just did tons of mini van shopping. the two buckets and the middle have latch and teather except for the Kia which if I am not mistaken was only the two buckets. Good Luck

[bubbaray]

I just got a 2005 Odyssey last Thursday. We have DD (15m) FF in a Britax Marathon in the 2nd row, behind the driver's seat. I chose that seat because it works best with how I park the van in our garage, plus I rarely park on the street (mostly parking lots), so it doesn't matter what side I take DD out on.

Our Odyssey has the 8th seat, the small seat in the middle of the 2nd row. Ours does not have a tether anchor for that seat, so it is illegal here to use that middle 2nd row seat for a seat that requires a tether strap (we are in Canada, where tethers have been mandatory for FFg seats for over 20 yrs). We removed our 8th seat altogether as we don't need it right now and it makes it easier to get from the 2nd row to the 3rd row.

There are only 3 tether anchors for FFg seats in the Odyssey -- the two 2nd row bucket seats and the center seat of the 3rd row. There are LATCH anchors on all 3 of these positions, as well as FFg top tether anchors (on the seat back, near the floor for the 2nd row and at the very rear of the van, near where the tailgate locks for the 3rd row).

Personally, if I had multiple children, I would place the FFg/ tethered seats first as there are only 3 tethers. I would then place RFg seats (which aren't required by law to be tethered here) in any LATCH position (unless I had a seat that had failed the LATCH tests). Lastly, I would use the 3rd row, outboard seat positions for RFg belt fastened seats or boosters. Does that make sense? If I had 2 children, I would probably just use the two 2nd row seats (unless the children needed to be separated to keep them from fighting). Its nice to be able to put the 3rd row seat down to have more cargo room.

HTH -- if you have any more questions, I'd be happy to try to help (but I'm not a tech, just a mom!).


Melissa


Maya Papaya!
http://lilypie.com/baby2/040411/3/4/1/-8/.png[/img][/url]

[catfeet]

Thanks everyone!

We just threw the seats in last night as we needed for the number of people in the car when we went out for celebratory new car dinner, lol.

There seemes, based on what you all have said, to be no superior placement for any specific seat in this car. So, I'm going to play with placement today and see what works best for us.

Thanks for all the support and hand holding yesterday. I really needed it!

Ann

[Joolsplus2]

Congratulations! We test drove the 2005 Touring and I almost had to physically restrain my dh from signing the papers to buy it, it's such a nice van!(our 2003 is in perfect shape...)


Julie CPS Tech and mom to 2 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx