Child Seats for CR-Z - Honda CRZ Forum: Honda CR-Z Hybrid Car Forums

cord77 · 06-09-2010, 09:32 AM

It seems the general concensus for the back seats is that they're really only suitable for kids. So with that in mind, and the fact that UK law says 1-12 yr olds need to be in suitable child seats/boosters, I've started looking into Stage 2/3 car seats for the CR-Z.

The best image I've found for the back seats is here:

A rough measurement from the dealer of the depth of the seat was 43cm (I don't have my CR-Z yet, I should have asked for a width measurement as well). But I can see from the photo that the seats have a bucket shape which doesn't lend itself to car seat installation, where the hard plastic bottoms are usually dead flat.

Also since the CR-Z has ISOFIX fittings I do want to use an ISOFIX child seat so I can install and forget about it. Don't want it bumping around while empty. If those slits in the back represent the ISOFIX bar locations (likely) then the inner one looks very snug to the belt fastener and raised mid-section. Unfortunately they seem to have gone with form over function on these rear seats.

One stage 2/3 carseat I've found which would seem to fit snuggly to the back of a car seat, and match up with the depth of the CR-Z seats (so that little legs hang over in the right place rather than stick out forwards) is this one:

Sunshine Kids Monterey Booster Car Seat

It doesn't have a full ISOFIX system, but rather uses loose belts with hooks on the end to secure the seat into place. This seems like a good compromise to me, especially since it keeps the price down also.

Anyway this is all theory atm as I've only got web information to go by, but I would like to hear anyone elses thoughts on the matter, or experiences from existing owners in Japan.

lexsum · 06-09-2010, 01:29 PM

i have taken my britax stage 1 seat to the dealer who let me try it out in their car. it fits fine but my little one is only 13 months and even then the front passenger seat needs to be fairly near the dash. the real problem is that the doors are not especially long for a three door car so the B pillar makes it difficult to 'work' the child into the back seat - but hey ho i don't want a four door car!

my advice take the seat along (with child) and try it out.

cord77 · 06-10-2010, 05:03 AM

I don't have a Group 2/3 childseat yet to test with, that is my reason to post here to try and choose the best one for this car. I took our spare group 1 seat (non-isofix) to the test drive and although it did fit in, as you said the passenger seat was so far forward my wife couldn't open the glove compartment afterwards. The group 2/3 seats are far shorter and should let a childs legs hang over the seat rather than stick out forward like in group 1 seats.

I've had some more information about the location of the ISOFIX bars in the car. Apparently they are about 1/2 inch lower than the join to the top of the moveable back section, so where you see the vertical slit in the fabric at the ISOFIX positions, the bars are actually near the top of that slit. This means a proper ISOFIX seat with solid extendable bars would do a better job than the cheaper belt ISOFAST system on the seat I was looking at. That way the seat would be pretty much level with the bulkier front part of the seat instead of sinking down into the bucket part. All this is important because you need the back of the child seat to still retain the slight recline so the child can sleep.

So my new favourite (in theory) is this one from Recaro:

.: RECARO :.

cord77 · 08-31-2010, 10:16 AM

Ok I've bought the child seat I intend on using in the CR-Z. Its arrived today so I've taken some pics. I'll be trying it in my dealers demonstrator on Friday and will take some pics of the position of the passenger seat once I've set it to something acceptable, and also showing the legroom for the child at the back.

This seat is ISOfix and the bars have a nice wide angle of movement up and down from the chair to suit different ISObar positions, so that bodes well for the CR-Z bucket seats in the back. More on Friday.

MTBer · 08-31-2010, 02:03 PM

That's looking good. What model child seat is that, exactly? Do keep us posted on how it fits (if possible, take some pictures with the seat installed). Much appreciated!

I'm also waiting for my CR-Z to arrive (ETA Jan/2011), and though we don't have any children yet, in a couple of years we may be very interested in child seats that fit in the CR-Z.

cord77 · 08-31-2010, 02:26 PM

Its the Recaro Monza Seat-fix (their name for the ISOfix version), they also do a non ISOfix version.

Don't worry I'll be taking pics of it once installed. Shame I can't have my daughter sitting in it at the time as she'll be in her first day at new school.

YLA · 08-31-2010, 04:08 PM

I have the recaro young sport grey/black.

Gone take some pics also, seems good to compare the sizes

cord77 · 09-03-2010, 08:44 AM

Ok back from my visit to the dealership, where I tested my Recaro Isofix child seat in the back of the GT model.

The fitting of the chair was easy enough, the ISOfix bars in the recaro seat made it very easy to click into place, and there are several positions for how far they extend, so you can have the chair leaning back a little bit more if you like. Once fitted it was very secure, no movement at all. Here are the pics (sorry the exposure is all over the place, was using my phone to take the pics, and the sunlight was blaring in through the windows).

Here is how far the headrest would extend, ie. not very far. I'm guessing after a certain age I will be looking to switch to the booster seat part only because of the lack of space at the pillar, blocking the wide head protector.

Then we have the passenger seat position. I've chosen a middle position, to give the child some leg room but also not to take all of the passengers legroom away (this is 8 notches back from the furthest forward passenger seat position).

With the passenger seat in the mid position, I sat down into it and was reasonably comfortable but had to go "legs wide" in order to avoid the knees into the glove compartment, but in that position I wasn't squashed up against any sides either. I'm 5'11" tall for referrence.

Then I moved the passenger seat all the way forward to show how that changes things. Probably only of use when you have no passenger.

MTBer · 09-03-2010, 09:56 AM

Great pics, thanks a lot! It seems that the CR-Z can accommodate a small child, and perhaps surprisingly it is the headroom that may be the ultimate limiting factor, space-wise. Would you agree?

cord77 · 09-03-2010, 10:57 AM

Well it's probably a bit of both, since legally in the UK you need at least a booster until they are 12 or 1.35m high, but sometime before that legroom will push the passenger seat forward more.

What I need is a 1.34m kid to test with, my little girl is only 92cm tall atm

06-09-2010, 09:32 AM	#1 (permalink)
cord77 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 163	Child Seats for CR-Z It seems the general concensus for the back seats is that they're really only suitable for kids. So with that in mind, and the fact that UK law says 1-12 yr olds need to be in suitable child seats/boosters, I've started looking into Stage 2/3 car seats for the CR-Z. The best image I've found for the back seats is here: A rough measurement from the dealer of the depth of the seat was 43cm (I don't have my CR-Z yet, I should have asked for a width measurement as well). But I can see from the photo that the seats have a bucket shape which doesn't lend itself to car seat installation, where the hard plastic bottoms are usually dead flat. Also since the CR-Z has ISOFIX fittings I do want to use an ISOFIX child seat so I can install and forget about it. Don't want it bumping around while empty. If those slits in the back represent the ISOFIX bar locations (likely) then the inner one looks very snug to the belt fastener and raised mid-section. Unfortunately they seem to have gone with form over function on these rear seats. One stage 2/3 carseat I've found which would seem to fit snuggly to the back of a car seat, and match up with the depth of the CR-Z seats (so that little legs hang over in the right place rather than stick out forwards) is this one: Sunshine Kids Monterey Booster Car Seat It doesn't have a full ISOFIX system, but rather uses loose belts with hooks on the end to secure the seat into place. This seems like a good compromise to me, especially since it keeps the price down also. Anyway this is all theory atm as I've only got web information to go by, but I would like to hear anyone elses thoughts on the matter, or experiences from existing owners in Japan.

08-31-2010, 04:08 PM	#7 (permalink)
YLA Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Europe Posts: 760	I have the recaro young sport grey/black. Gone take some pics also, seems good to compare the sizes __________________ http://promo-code.be (sorry, only in Dutch or French)

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06-09-2010, 01:29 PM	#2 (permalink)
lexsum Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Strathclyde Posts: 80	i have taken my britax stage 1 seat to the dealer who let me try it out in their car. it fits fine but my little one is only 13 months and even then the front passenger seat needs to be fairly near the dash. the real problem is that the doors are not especially long for a three door car so the B pillar makes it difficult to 'work' the child into the back seat - but hey ho i don't want a four door car! my advice take the seat along (with child) and try it out.

06-10-2010, 05:03 AM	#3 (permalink)
cord77 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 163	I don't have a Group 2/3 childseat yet to test with, that is my reason to post here to try and choose the best one for this car. I took our spare group 1 seat (non-isofix) to the test drive and although it did fit in, as you said the passenger seat was so far forward my wife couldn't open the glove compartment afterwards. The group 2/3 seats are far shorter and should let a childs legs hang over the seat rather than stick out forward like in group 1 seats. I've had some more information about the location of the ISOFIX bars in the car. Apparently they are about 1/2 inch lower than the join to the top of the moveable back section, so where you see the vertical slit in the fabric at the ISOFIX positions, the bars are actually near the top of that slit. This means a proper ISOFIX seat with solid extendable bars would do a better job than the cheaper belt ISOFAST system on the seat I was looking at. That way the seat would be pretty much level with the bulkier front part of the seat instead of sinking down into the bucket part. All this is important because you need the back of the child seat to still retain the slight recline so the child can sleep. So my new favourite (in theory) is this one from Recaro: .: RECARO :.

08-31-2010, 10:16 AM	#4 (permalink)
cord77 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 163	Ok I've bought the child seat I intend on using in the CR-Z. Its arrived today so I've taken some pics. I'll be trying it in my dealers demonstrator on Friday and will take some pics of the position of the passenger seat once I've set it to something acceptable, and also showing the legroom for the child at the back. This seat is ISOfix and the bars have a nice wide angle of movement up and down from the chair to suit different ISObar positions, so that bodes well for the CR-Z bucket seats in the back. More on Friday.

08-31-2010, 02:03 PM	#5 (permalink)
MTBer Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Finland Posts: 32	That's looking good. What model child seat is that, exactly? Do keep us posted on how it fits (if possible, take some pictures with the seat installed). Much appreciated! I'm also waiting for my CR-Z to arrive (ETA Jan/2011), and though we don't have any children yet, in a couple of years we may be very interested in child seats that fit in the CR-Z.

08-31-2010, 02:26 PM	#6 (permalink)
cord77 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 163	Its the Recaro Monza Seat-fix (their name for the ISOfix version), they also do a non ISOfix version. Don't worry I'll be taking pics of it once installed. Shame I can't have my daughter sitting in it at the time as she'll be in her first day at new school.

09-03-2010, 08:44 AM	#8 (permalink)
cord77 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 163	Ok back from my visit to the dealership, where I tested my Recaro Isofix child seat in the back of the GT model. The fitting of the chair was easy enough, the ISOfix bars in the recaro seat made it very easy to click into place, and there are several positions for how far they extend, so you can have the chair leaning back a little bit more if you like. Once fitted it was very secure, no movement at all. Here are the pics (sorry the exposure is all over the place, was using my phone to take the pics, and the sunlight was blaring in through the windows). Here is how far the headrest would extend, ie. not very far. I'm guessing after a certain age I will be looking to switch to the booster seat part only because of the lack of space at the pillar, blocking the wide head protector. Then we have the passenger seat position. I've chosen a middle position, to give the child some leg room but also not to take all of the passengers legroom away (this is 8 notches back from the furthest forward passenger seat position). With the passenger seat in the mid position, I sat down into it and was reasonably comfortable but had to go "legs wide" in order to avoid the knees into the glove compartment, but in that position I wasn't squashed up against any sides either. I'm 5'11" tall for referrence. Then I moved the passenger seat all the way forward to show how that changes things. Probably only of use when you have no passenger.

09-03-2010, 09:56 AM	#9 (permalink)
MTBer Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Finland Posts: 32	Great pics, thanks a lot! It seems that the CR-Z can accommodate a small child, and perhaps surprisingly it is the headroom that may be the ultimate limiting factor, space-wise. Would you agree?

09-03-2010, 10:57 AM	#10 (permalink)
cord77 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 163	Well it's probably a bit of both, since legally in the UK you need at least a booster until they are 12 or 1.35m high, but sometime before that legroom will push the passenger seat forward more. What I need is a 1.34m kid to test with, my little girl is only 92cm tall atm