2013 Honda Civic: Car Seat Check

It’s been a busy couple of years for the Honda Civic. The compact sedan was redesigned for the 2012 model year, but it wasn’t well-received. This sent Honda back to the drawing board with the freshened 2013 Civic the result. Cars.com bought this Civic and will write about owning it through the year.

For the Car Seat Check, we use a Graco SnugRide 30 rear-facing infant-safety seat, a Britax Roundabout convertible child-safety seat and Graco high-back TurboBooster seat.

The front seats are adjusted to a comfortable position for a 6-foot driver and a 5-foot-8 passenger. The three child seats are installed in the second row. The booster seat sits behind the driver’s seat, and the infant seat and convertible seats are installed behind the passenger seat. We also install the convertible seat in the second row’s middle seat with the booster and infant seat in the outboard seats to see if three car seats will fit. If there’s a third row, we install the booster seat and a forward-facing convertible.

Here’s how the 2013 Civic did in Cars.com’s Car Seat Check:

Latch system: The Civic has two sets of lower Latch anchors in the outboard seats. They sit between the back and bottom cushions, but they’re accessible because the cushions are easy to move out of the way. Three tether anchors are located on the rear shelf behind the backseat’s head restraints, which are removable. They sit under hinged plastic covers.

Booster seat: The high-back booster seat fit well after we removed the head restraint. The seat belt buckles are on floppy bases, which can make it difficult for younger kids to buckle up independently.

Convertible seat: Though the seat cushions have some contouring, it didn’t affect the forward-facing convertible’s installation. We had to remove the head restraint to make this seat fit, though.

The rear-facing convertible installed easily, and we didn’t have to move the front passenger seat forward for it to fit.

Infant-safety seat: This rear-facing seat also fit well in the Civic. The front passenger had plenty of legroom and didn’t have to move the front seat forward to accommodate the safety seat.

How many car seats fit in the second row? Two

Editor’s note: For three car seats — infant-safety seat, convertible and booster seats — to fit in a car, our criterion is that a child sitting in the booster seat must be able to reach the seat belt buckle. Parents should also remember that they can use the Latch system or a seat belt to install a car seat.

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