How to Dadda
How to Dadda
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Skills

Install a car seat

About 20 minutes the first time, with the manual open. About five the second time. Difficulty: fiddly

What this is for

The one job with a law and a deadline attached. Not hard, just fiddly — twenty minutes with the manual open.

Before Dadda starts

Within reach:

  • The seat and its fitting instructions.
  • The car's manual, for the anchorage points.
  • The car parked, doors open, back seat clear.

Both manuals beat this page. Lost ones come free from the manufacturer.

The seat goes in the back, rearward facing. No law says a fitter has to do it, and there is no certificate to collect.

The steps

  1. Read your seat's fitting instructions and your car's manual.
  2. Pick a rear seating position with a top tether anchorage.
  3. Run the belt through the belt path, or clip in the ISOFIX connectors. Follow the colour coding.
  4. Hook the top tether in and pull it firm. Every Australian seat needs it.
  5. Take the slack out. No looseness, no twists, anywhere.
  6. Roll the spare webbing up and store it.
  7. Set the harness to the slot nearest bub's shoulders, never below.
  8. Do the harness up firm and lay every strap flat.

How Dadda knows he got it right

  • Two fingers flat between the harness and bub's chest. Both fit, no more.
  • A hand down every strap and the tether. Flat the whole way, no twist.
  • A pull on the tether. Firm, no give.

What goes wrong

  • The top tether loose, or not hooked in. The most common one.
  • The belt in the wrong path, or twisted. Re-run it, do not tighten harder.
  • ISOFIX treated as foolproof. One study found 40 per cent of parents connected it wrong. Clicking is not connected.
  • The buckle left open. Look before every trip.

When to stop and get help

If no rear position has a top tether anchorage, or the seat will not sit firm however much slack comes out, stop and call an Authorised Restraint Fitting Station. They will also check one Dadda fitted himself.

Dadda's note

Car seat installation is the great hoax. Pay someone if you're lazy, but there's really no need.

— Josh, on HOW-87.

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