gpfarrell

I have 3 young kids that ride 3 across in the back seat of our 535xit.

That means I have 3 car seats.

Up until now, the oldest has used the right rear seat belt and a booster seat. The youngest (infant) rides in the center. The middle child rides on the left (sorry we couldn't keep them in order ), behind the driver, and has used the harness that is part of his Simpson Racing child seat.

But he turns 4 this Saturday and in Pennsylvania he should switch from the child seat harness to the car's seat belt while still using a child seat/booster seat.

There's no way a hand can fit between his seat and the infant seat to fasten or release a the car's seat belt.

Has anybody found a seat belt extender that could work in this application? Our local BMW dealer and numerous web sites say BMW does not offer them.

I've read one tale of a GM (yeah, as in General Motors!) extender from a Chevy Tahoe that will click right into the BMW, and the BMW belt will click right into the extender. As you can imagine, I'm much more interested in pursuing just the extender than the entire Tahoe.

I'm sure such a solution would not be BMW approved, but I'm also sure that GM has tested that for 400lb super-sized adult and my 40lb boy will never generate enough force to make it fail, so I'm not worried about.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

wolfgang0524

My wife works with Safe Kids, which is an organization involved with child passenger safety including car seat safety checks. I pointed her to your question. Below is her response. Good luck.

I would recommend they find a car seat with a higher weight limit harness. The "law" is a guideline and it is perfectly safe to keep a child in a harnessed seat until 65 or 80 pounds (the 80 pound version is the Sunshine Radian--this seat is a lot narrower than most car seats as well and might provide the extra needed hand space).

The other option is to put the two booster seat children next to each other with the actual buckles next to each other. It's easier to move the boosters around to buckle them in than a car seat that is secured in with the seat belt.

For example--if the left rear passenger buckles on the right and the center seat buckles on the left, put the two booster seat kids in these positions with the harnessed seat (younger child) on the rear passenger where the seat won't interfere with the buckle of the boosters.

Since BMW does not make seat belt extenders, I would NOT recommend using another car company's, unless BMW approves it. Can't hurt to ask!

It's going to be tight no matter what they decide, but the Sunshine Radian might be a good option since it has a higher weight limit on the harness and is more narrow.

gpfarrell

Thanks for the ideas!

Howitzer

I thought about having kids once. Never twice, though.