ISOFIX child seats fnally legal... (in 2013)

[Ben Wilson]

i have no idea what isofix looks like, but im sure its retrofittable to older cars. it would need an engineers certificate though

AFAIK, you can't retrofit ISOFIX to cars without them.

It's just a square loop of 6mm steel, if you can get to the metal between the seat back and the base, it shouldn't be too difficult. Thinking about it, you could even build up a bolt in bracket so you don't have to weld to the car structure, it wouldn't need any more reinforcing than a seatbelt/harness mount to bolt to.

[Daisy]

Surely German cars etc have the bits anyway?

Mine's a 98 model, so too early. I read on the UK site that it can be retrofitted, but as mentioned above it has to be engineered. Can't see it being economically viable in this country - by the time everything is approved, inspected, licenced and stamped in triplicate ... with the appropriate fees ...


the grandkids will be asking me for the car keys.

[theblacktexta]

Surely German cars etc have the bits anyway?

Yer both mine have them

[23Kev]

So we have a kid coming in November and a brand new corolla with ISOFIX. Obviously I'd prefer to get an ISOFIX seat asap.

Do we get a normal seat for a few months or try and get an ISOFIX one at the end of the year??

[Falc&Send]

Buy/use the ISOFIX now. It's a better/safer system. Fuck what some beauracratic mumbo jumbo says. No different really to half the people on here that have mods done to their car and no engineer certificate. If it's jus ta family car what are the chances of getting caught having an unapproved child seat thing? Pretty low I would think. Doubt if most coppers would know what they are looking at if you happened to get pulled over, as long as the baby seat looked to be secured properly it would be all good.

[Jim]

I swear i have seen these fittings in heaps of old cars including vn commos

[Boxer]

Hooray finally FFS!!

It's fucking disgusting it has taken so long. The system we have now is total bullshit.

+1 and just in time for me to throw out the useless SafeNsounds for boosters. :knock:

if i had kids i would use isofix anyway. too easy, and every modern car is equipped for it....

I know a few people who did exactly this - just imported the seats from the UK

So we have a kid coming in November and a brand new corolla with ISOFIX. Obviously I'd prefer to get an ISOFIX seat asap.

Do we get a normal seat for a few months or try and get an ISOFIX one at the end of the year??

Kev, as above - others have gone down the ISOfix route anyway - its far better, the systems we have in Oz are disgusting, I cant believe its taken so long, they are fiddly, easy to get wrong and provide so much slop its not funny. I actually had a kiddie seat turn 90degs in the middle seating position in a Dunnydore, from rounding a corner. The seatbelts in the rear of current Commodores dont have the lock-out function for tightening the belts for kids seats by extracting the belt all the way out then slowly feeding it back in. The Liberty did have this function and was far more secure, however it also had ISOfix points as does my current Euro daily

However - have an accident and the legal beareaucrats will probably ask you to prove the ISOfix didn't contribute to any injuries:knock:

[Nitephyre]

Awesome, that'll pretty much be perfect timing for us as we're hoping to upgrade to an Amarok fairly soon, although I can see them ISOFIX seats being sold locally for rapeage prices to start with :/

[smellytofu]

Buy/use the ISOFIX now. It's a better/safer system. Fuck what some beauracratic mumbo jumbo says. No different really to half the people on here that have mods done to their car and no engineer certificate. If it's jus ta family car what are the chances of getting caught having an unapproved child seat thing? Pretty low I would think. Doubt if most coppers would know what they are looking at if you happened to get pulled over, as long as the baby seat looked to be secured properly it would be all good.

Difficulty with that is buying the thing now. The liability issue of a shop selling you an ISOFIX seat is enough to scare shops off selling them before the legal date. I got my seat from Japan and if I find one that's nowhere near $1k, I'd buy a newer one when I go overseas next month.

[smellytofu]

The seatbelts in the rear of current Commodores dont have the lock-out function for tightening the belts for kids seats by extracting the belt all the way out then slowly feeding it back in. The Liberty did have this function and was far more secure, however it also had ISOfix points as does my current Euro daily

You'd find the newer Euros don't have ALR in them anymore since ISOFIX negates the need for ALR. So cars like Focus, Mondeo, Dualis, XTrail, some Corollas etc don't have ALR which means resorting to those seat belt clips that we used to use in the 70's and 80's until this date officially.

[fatz]

how do i find if my new baby seat is isofix

as my car has the plates?

[redbucket]

The base of the seat should have fixings to attach to the isofix points in the base of the car seat. It will be very obvious.

[Do the safety dance.]

If you bought locally it most likely won't be ISOFIX.

[Greg Rust]

i30 is a model that has them, we used the isofix for kid 1 when he was born 2 years ago and will do so for the next one in June. Plus my Focus has them and I want to use it.

Fuck the government, it's my fucking kid and his safety and I would argue that to my grave.

[St00ge]

I don't know what type of current seats you guys have but the two I semi use for my nephew is piece of piss to install in a BA or a x5 in my experience and they are in there pretty fucking tight, nothing like the sloppy fit all you guys always bring up. The seats we have must just be a better design because I am pretty certain either one installed correctly would provide the same protection to a child and only when installed incorrectly the isofit would lead to the seat failing.. I agree the isofix seems to be pretty fool proof and a simpler system which will reduce injury due to incorrect installation...