2015 Toyota RAV4: Car Seat Check

Toyota’s compact crossover carries over relatively unchanged to model-year 2015. Adequate legroom eased the installation of our rear-facing child-safety seats, but tricky top tether anchor placement kept the RAV4 from earning higher grades in our Car Seat Check.

More Car Seat Checks

How many car seats fit in the second row? Two

What We Like

• We did not have to move the front seat forward to make room for the infant seat or rear-facing convertible seat. Both seats were also easy to install.
• The booster was easy to install and fit well.

What We Don’t

• We had no problem using the two sets of Latch anchors in the outboard seats, but did not like the placement of the three top tether anchors. They are in the slits in the seatback upholstery and easy for parents to miss when installing a forward-facing car seat.  
• The second-row seats do not slide or recline as they do in some competing vehicles.
• The middle position’s seat belt descends from the roof and then routes behind driver-side rear passenger’s back (or in the middle of the seat), impacting the driver’s visibility and that passenger’s comfort.

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 and Jennifer Newman 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.