2015 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen Makes Installing Car Seats Easy
It’s no secret that most parents on Cars.com’s editorial staff have a big thing for wagons. Volkswagen’s newest entry delights with its sleek, anti-minivan styling and choice of peppy and efficient engines, as well as ample passenger room and cargo space. Parents considering the Golf SportWagen are in for an extra treat when it comes to car seats: Installation is a snap thanks to two handy features.
Related: Research the 2015 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen
The five-passenger wagon has two sets of lower Latch anchors in the outboard seating positions and like other Audi and VW vehicles, they sit under plastic covers. Pop the cover off for an exposed anchor; connection couldn’t be easier.
While this Latch setup isn’t a new feature, the top tether anchors are. Three top tethers are midway down the seatback and they are clearly labeled “top tether,” something we’ve never seen before, despite installing car seats in hundreds of vehicles for Cars.com’s Car Seat Checks.
Connecting a forward-facing car seat to a top tether anchor is important because it lessens head and neck injuries in a crash, but parents often forget to use it. One Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Study found that the anchor gets used only about half the time. Because the anchors are often out of sight behind the seat, they’re easy to forget. Sometimes — like in the Golf SportWagen — they’re also next to cargo anchors, which cannot be safely used to restrain a car seat. The study’s results also showed that vehicles with easier to see and access tether anchors have a higher connection rate, so any extra visibility helps.
Many other vehicles make it more challenging to remember the anchor and then correctly connect to it. Take the Toyota RAV4’s top tether anchors, for example. According to the Safe Ride News, a publisher of educational materials for the child passenger safety field, the only way to fully expose the top tether anchor, is to cut away the upholstery surrounding it. Yes, you read that correctly. If you want to secure your child in the safest way possible, you need to take a knife to your SUV. In our Car Seat Check, we noted the tricky placement of the anchors, disliking them because they’re nestled into small slits in the seatback fabric — easy to miss and tough to dig out to access.
Volkswagen did it right with the Golf SportWagen — its visible, clearly marked tether anchor label makes it tough for parents to miss and easier for parents to keep their kids as safe as possible on the road.
