Installing Car seat

If the back of a car seat touches the back of the front seat when rear facing is it safe to use?

If you talk to your local plunket they should have someone who will check your car seat installation and make sure it's properly in place. The back of my passenger seat did touch the back of DS's capsule and does just touch the back of his RF Radian, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is always safe. Best to check IMO.

When I went and got our capsule checked I was amazed at how little movement there was in the seat compared to when I had fitted it myself. Plus the seat was tilting forward just enough to have DS's head flop forward (which can be v. dangerous) and the lady at Plunket soon had that sorted.

You need to have a garage install it, as they put it where the strongest part of your car is. Tether straps are just to stop the carseat from moving too much in a crash, it doesnt matter much if they are off centre, as long as you have one.

From what I have heard from very knowledgable people (car seat gurus, I call them) who actually work with Plunket and the police on car seat checkpoints - it is OK to have the front seat touching the back of the RFing carseat, but not so much that it changes the angle or makes it rigid, iykwim?

The seat needs to be rigid at the belt path (where the seat belt passes through the seat at the bottom), but when RFing there should be some movement in the top of the seat (where bubbas head is) as this movement helps absorb the impact of a crash. If the car seat is totally rigid, then it cannot do its job of absorbing the impact, and instead the impact goes straight through onto baby.

So basically, when you have installed your car seat properly, give it a shake at the belt path, where it should be very firm and have little or no movement. Then give it a shake at the top of the seat - there should be some movement there (even if it is tethered). Then when you are pushing the front seat back, make sure that you are not changing the seat angle and that you can still shake it at the top in the same way you could before the front seat was pushed back.