Seat belt and child restraints question

[flyingcarhands]

A question for those with little kiddies requiring child seats.

Previously I had a 4 year old Japanese car. When you pull the rear seat belts out fully, when you let it retract it clicks repeatedly and will not let you pull it out again until it is fully retracted. This is a safety feature when installing child restraints as there is absolutely no play in the child seat once you strap it in.

Question is, it seems most European cars do not have this feature, the mk5 Golf being one of them.

OK, I know in a crash situation the seatbelt pretensioner acts and will stop the child seat from moving. So is this any less effective than the type that does not let the belt be pulled out with the clickety thingy?

[cube_3]

I have a MK4 and if you pull the belt rapidly i.e. jerk it , it engages the locking mechanism and will not stop until fully retracted. I assume its the same for the newer gold models.

[Maverick]

A question for those with little kiddies requiring child seats.

Previously I had a 4 year old Japanese car. When you pull the rear seat belts out fully, when you let it retract it clicks repeatedly and will not let you pull it out again until it is fully retracted. This is a safety feature when installing child restraints as there is absolutely no play in the child seat once you strap it in.

Question is, it seems most European cars do not have this feature, the mk5 Golf being one of them.

OK, I know in a crash situation the seatbelt pretensioner acts and will stop the child seat from moving. So is this any less effective than the type that does not let the belt be pulled out with the clickety thingy?

There are no pretensioners on the rear seats.

Europe and the USA are way ahead of backwater Australia which still has archaic requirements for child seats and won't adopt the far superior isofix system.

Best solution is to import some illegal but far superior isofix child seats from Europe. They are far safer especially in side impacts where the Australian ones are useless, they can't be fitted to incorrectly (stats are that ~80% of all child seats are fitted incorrectly) and are far quicker to install and remove.

If you do a search you'll find some threads with heaps of info.

[flyingcarhands]

There are no pretensioners on the rear seats.

Europe and the USA are way ahead of backwater Australia which still has archaic requirements for child seats and won't adopt the far superior isofix system.

Best solution is to import some illegal but far superior isofix child seats from Europe. They are far safer especially in side impacts where the Australian ones are useless, they can't be fitted to incorrectly (stats are that ~80% of all child seats are fitted incorrectly) and are far quicker to install and remove.

If you do a search you'll find some threads with heaps of info.

Yeah I saw the thread where you made comments about isofix. Well I could buy two new seats. I also seem to recall you can buy some belt clips that stop it rolling out? I would like to use the existing seats. The problem with Euro cars not using the system in modern Japanese cars with non-isofix seats is side impact protection. A side impact may not trigger the belt lock and be enough to tilt the child seat causing the childs head to hit a solid object.

Also, why did VW Australia fit new anchor points on the rear of the seats? The original anchor points are in a silly position though. Are the Aussie points secure? They look cheap.

[flyingcarhands]

I also seem to recall you can buy some belt clips that stop it rolling out?

Spoke to Pearce's Child Restraints. Yep, there is a gated buckle (also "locking buckle") you can buy from kmart/target/baby shops that clips on and stops the belt.

We have 2 seats - Safe n Sound Meridian and Safe n Sound Discovery Plus. The Meridian has its own lock built in, the Discovery Plus we need to buy the clip. Around $6.

Apparently old VAG cars had the belt pretensioner as described in the original post. They removed the feature some time ago. The car I previously had - Mazda3, current model has this feature removed as well!

I think either one (or both) of the following needs to happen:

• manufacturers should not skimp on safety features and put them back in, or
• Australian child seats use isofix

[Maverick]

I think either one (or both) of the following needs to happen:

• manufacturers should not skimp on safety features and put them back in, or
• Australian child seats use isofix

The problem you have is that Australia is one of the only countries in the world where you cannot use isofix. You can't expect VW or anyone else to continue to manufacture cars to suit backwards countries when the requirement is not mandatory (the locking seatbelt).

This comes back once again to Australia creating it's own ADR's that are not required when European ADR's that are clearly superior could be adopted. There's all this talk all the time about the how ~80% of child seats are incorrect fitted etc but how about spending some of that energy in adopting isofix which solves most of the problems!

When the time comes I'll by buying an isofix seat from Europe for my car, I don't care that it's illegal and I could booked for using it because it is far safer than Australian requirements and safety to me comes before outdated Australian laws. If I had an existing seat in good condition I'd probably go down the path of the clip however.