2013 Toyota Venza: Car Seat Check
Toyota’s Venza offers the passenger and cargo room of an SUV but the look and ride height of a wagon. It scores high on the family-friendliness scale thanks to a comfortable, roomy backseat, but loses points for awkwardly placed Latch and tether anchors.
How many car seats fit in the second row? Two
What We Like
- After removing the head restraint, it was easy to install the booster on the wide, flat seats. The buckles are on stable bases, which should make it easy for kids to buckle independently.
- There was plenty of room for the rear-facing convertible seat. The front-passenger’s legroom wasn’t impacted.
- There was also enough room for the infant seat; the front passenger had to move the seat up a bit to accommodate the car seat, but there was still a comfortable amount of legroom.
What We Don’t
- The inboard Latch anchors are crowded by the seat belt buckle, blocking access and complicating the installation of all of our seats. The stiff leather seat cushions didn’t help matters.
- The tether anchors are also in a less-than-convenient place; all three are under the cargo area’s carpeting under plastic covers.
Grading Scale
A: Plenty of room for the car seat and the child; doesn’t impact driver or front-passenger legroom. Easy to find and connect to Latch and tether anchors. No fit issues involving head restraint or seat contouring. Easy access to the third row.
B: Plenty of room. One fit or connection issue. Some problems accessing third row.
C: Marginal room. Two fit or connection issues. Difficult to access third row.
D: Insufficient room. Two or more fit or connection issues.
F: Does not fit or is unsafe.
About Cars.com’s Car Seat Checks
Editors Jennifer Geiger and Jennifer Newman are certified child safety seat installation technicians.
For the Car Seat Check, we use a Graco SnugRide 30 infant-safety seat, a Britax Roundabout convertible seat and Graco TurboBooster seat. The front seats are adjusted 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 and convertible seats are installed behind the front passenger seat.
We also install the forward-facing convertible 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; a child sitting in the booster seat must be able to reach the seat belt buckle. If there’s a third row, we install the booster seat and a forward-facing convertible.
Parents should also remember that they can use the Latch system or a seat belt to install a car seat.
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