2014 Land Rover Range Rover: Car Seat Check
It doesn’t get much more posh than the 2014 Land Rover Range Rover. This ultraluxury SUV wraps its passengers in comfort with its supple leather seats and head restraints that are as soft as pillows. With room for five, our test car had a long wheelbase, which adds 7.9 inches to this already large SUV’s length. Some may argue that this isn’t a family car, but our policy is to test cars that arrive in our Chicago headquarters that have a workable backseat, and the Range Rover certainly meets that criterion.
The Range Rover nearly fit three child-safety seats across its backseat, but the seats were too close together for a child in a booster seat to reach the seat belt buckle. Using narrow car seats in the backseat might be an option for parents of three kids interested in this SUV.
How many car seats fit in the second row? Two
What We Like
- Because of its long wheelbase, this Range Rover had plenty of room for both our rear-facing infant and convertible seats.
- Our high-back booster seat fit well in the Range Rover’s wide outboard seats. However, the seat belt buckle sits low in the bottom cushion, making it difficult for kids to buckle up independently. I test-drove the Range Rover over a weekend and my 7-year-old son needed my help whenever he tried to buckle up on his own. He’s well past needing help in most test cars.
What We Don’t
- We had problems with both the lower Latch anchors and tether anchors in the Range Rover. It was difficult to use the lower Latch anchors with our convertible’s rigid Latch connectors because the seat belt buckles were in the way of the inboard anchors. Thankfully, the buckles can be pushed down and out of the way, which made connection easier. The tether anchors are located at the base of the seatbacks, just below the cargo floor. This location makes it difficult to use the anchors.
- Because of the problems listed above, installing the forward-facing convertible took a lot more effort than in most cars. This is always a concern because parents grappling with car seats might not bother to use a car seat’s tether anchor if they can’t easily connect the seat to it.
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 when available.
C: Marginal room. Two fit or connection issues. Difficult to access third row when available.
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, Jennifer Newman and Matt Schmitz are certified child safety seat installation technicians.
For the Car Seat Check, we use a Graco SnugRide Classic Connect 30 infant-safety seat, a Britax Marathon 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. To learn more about how we conduct our Car Seat Checks, go here.
Parents should also remember that they can use the Latch system or a seat belt to install a car seat, and that Latch anchors have a weight limit of 65 pounds, including the weight of the child and the weight of the seat itself.
Cars.com photos by Evan Sears
