How difficult, if possible, is it to deal with a clip in car seat for now and a Fox Hatch or Notch? Thanks, Rob
Well, I have 3 kids and have used car seats for everyone of them. You have to use the seat belt clip to keep the seat belt tight for the seats you use for younger kids. Once they are big enough for the booster type seats you don't have to use the clip. The clip holds the lap belt and shoulder harness together to form one belt. When installing the seat, you will need to make sure you have the belt short enough that it takes pushing the seat into the cars seat to clip the seat belt buckle. Car seats must be held very tightly or are worthless in an accident. There is such a thing now called the latch system, but this is not going to work in a fox since it has no hooks like 2000 or so models started using. Please give us some more info on what you are asking and will try to help. Here is a pic of booster seats that do not require the clip to keep the lap belt and shoulder harness tight together. I don't love to put all my kids in the stang, but I have the safety precautions in place. I have a 12, 9, and 7 yr old by the way and have been from the infant stage to now with using car seats.
Gotcha I've had 3 fox's, but all before my wife and I had our son, now 5 months old... My question is more can/does a car seat fit in the back seat. We have the carrier/clip in type like this http://www.albeebaby.com/pegpe20prvii5.html So my wife and I each have a base that we keep in our cars and just clip the carrier into the base, it's my understanding that these physically take up more room than a typical forward facing car seat... Thank you for the info you provided, but if you could help me out with this I'd be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to figure out if I can get another fox body since I've been Stangless for 4 years... Thanks, Rob
Ok, now I understand your question better. You will have to use the seat belt lock that i showed earlier in a fox. When my kids were in car seats that size, we always put that type of car seat in the passenger side front and my wife had to ride in the back seat. Reason for this is that the front to back length of the child seat did not allow it to fit in the backseat and not touch the front seat without having the front seat leaning forward. This was quite a drag until the kids got bigger and wasn't an issue. If you don't plan on using the stang for going together as a family, it should be ok with the infant in front. You may also want to put a towel under the child seat to protect your car seat and also for leveling out between the child seat base and your seat. I can't tell you if the dimensions have changed since we had our kids in the smaller child seats, so someone else that has kids now will have to answer that one to know for sure if it will fit with todays standards. I remember the day I called the child seat maker and they told me to put the seat in the back seat in the middle. I politely told them, there is no seat belt in the middle back seat....its a MUSTANG. Let me know if I can help with any more info.
We had seats with the base for our first two kids (now 16 and 13) and ended up not using the base portion since the seats also had provisions to mount the lap belt across the top of the seat and secure it in a car without the base. Ended up being easier to install and gave us more room. Luckily my wife is under 5' so the passenger seat always sat all the way up and we had enough room in the back. The Stang was our only car until my daughter (now 13) was 6 month old, so we had a lot of car seat time in it. We used the car a few times with my now 6 yr old twins when they were in infant seats, and having both in the rear was not "fun", but we managed. As for the seatbelt clips, those are only required for 90+ cars. The 89 and earlier only have the lap belts and they have a built in rachet assembly that locks the belt in position and hold the seat securely.. But of course the lap belts are not as safe when they outgrow the car seat and can use the booster seats shown above. That is why I installed 90 model belts on my car about 10 years ago. But I kept the locking lap belts also just in case I need to mount another car seat to drive my niece or nephews around. Good luck with it. My kids have really enjoyed riding in my car, especially the twins! "Go fast Daddy, go fast!!!" LOL!
