Friends,

I realize this should be in the interior section, but the question pertains to the body style all of our 6.5's have and most of the conversation over there pertains to rattly interiors on $50K Duramax trucks.

A sad story has occured among friends of my family and their young daughter was killed in a horrific auto accident, partially due to the fact that their carseat, while it was anchored using the seat belt was not anchored strongly enough, and that use of the LATCH system would likely have prevented such injury and death for our friends daughter.

Is there an attachment that later model Suburbans added to the seats that allowed for the use of LATCH? I'm using the center strap seat belt to hold in the seat, and as you can imagine, I've got that thing hammered in tight, but those latch straps really work pretty well.

Your advice welcomed. Do I need to get a used bench seat out of a later model Burb? How about the 3rd seat? I've been considering upgrading the leather anyway.

I don't want to sell this Burb, because it's big, safe, runs well and costs next to nothing to drive, but I really want to increase the safety for our littlest.

Thanks for your advice,

VO

Nothing? Come on folks, I want to keep my Burbio, but want to add LATCH capacity.

Bueller? Buelller?

Hey veg moving this to the interior forum, what I would do is maybe contact the car seat mfrs, it's been a while since I've had to deal with cars seat issues myself so I can't offer much more than that.

Veg,

Maybe this will help. The car seats I have all have the strap on them, so I'm guessing your looking for the anchor point or hold down point to mount to the floor of your Burb right? If so My Blazer came with these in the cargo area, maybe your Burb did to I don't know. I would think that you would be able get these from the Dealer. Maybe mount these in the floor board and attach the strap from the car seat to it, along with the seat belt. I hope this is what you were looking for and it helps.

That's a heck of a good idea. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome Veg, (Hope you mean me)...

If it saves a kids life then it's all worth it!!!!!!!!!!! Matter of fact since you posted this I am going to make sure that when my kids ride in the Blazer (2 still in car seats) that they are attached EVERY TIME!!

We have a '99 Burb and no LATCH anchors in the seats. I'm guessing the seats from a newer body style burb would not fit w/o some effort based on my "eyeball" assessment. A local van conversion place here would add anchors, but not guarantee them to be as safe as LATCH from the factory. Unfortunately, if you want LATCH, you need to buy a newer burb.

I bought Britax car seats for my kids. They are not cheap but I can install them so tight that I can shake the whole rig when I pull on their seats. They are a good design that works well with the stock shoulder/lap belt combos.

My 8 mo daughter is in a Graco snugride in the middle seat, middle position with the lap belt. Took a good bit of wrangling to get that one in really tight.

If you take your rig to the fire dept, they will check your car seat install.

Also, not sure if you knew this already, but most LATCH anchors are only good for 40lbs. My 3 yo son exceeded this a few months back, so in my Dmax, he has the seat with no LATCH anchors and its installed with the seat belts.

Good luck.

I found a way to use the latch straps on my nieces seat to anchor it to the seat in my parent's 'burb. I believe I latched one side to the hinge portion, the top strap over the back and down to the floor, and the other side to something. I figure it was better than nothing.

Keep in mind, I did all of this AFTER I had the seat strapped in so tight with the seatbelt that you could shake the whole truck by moving the car seat. Hooking up the latch straps was just some added redundancy. Anything to keep the kids safe.

I figure even if you have to get a new seat for the truck after the kid has grown out of the seat, it's worth it. I get my knee/knees right in the seat to compress the lower cushion as much as possible. It's also nice to keep them in the middle as long as possible...

Meanwhile, I remember being a toddler, riding in the back of a 1980 VW diesel Rabbit with the seat folded down so I had more room to play! :eek: We also were put in a 'car-bed' which was basically a basket of death that you put lengthwise on the backseat. :eek:

But that was back when that was all considered 'safe'... ;)

Child restraints?

For how many of us did that mean Mom reaching over with her right hand going around a curve or slowing down to keep us from rolling off the passenger seat?

Times change....

According to the manual on my car seat the seat belt is stronger than the LATCH anchors as it says to not use LATCH over a certain weight (50lbs IIRC) and switch to seat belt anchoring at that point. Makes sense as the latch anchors don't look all that strong compared to the seat belts.