2017 Chevrolet Cruze Hatchback: Car Seat Check
CARS.COM — It’s Valentine’s Day, and if you’re hoping this most romantic of all holidays leads to one of those first-comes-love-then-comes-marriage situations, the next logical progression is gonna be a baby in a baby carriage — or a car seat.
To that end, young families could do much worse than the 2017 Chevrolet Cruze hatchback. The new-for-2017 body style follows the Chevy’s 2016 redesign and actually performed a little better than that version in our Car Seat Check. We tested the Premier trim of the five-seat hatchback.
How many car seats fit in the second row? Two
What We Like
- The hatchback has three top tether anchors on the seatback that are easy to use.
- Our infant seat installed easily with its slender, hooklike connecters, and just fit into the back seat without having to move the front passenger seat forward; this is the one area where the hatchback exceeds the performance of the sedan.
- Our convertible seat in both the rear- and forward-facing positions ran into some trouble, but it fit well once installed.
What We Don’t
- There are two sets of Latch anchors in the outboard seats positioned behind flappy pockets in the leather upholstery. They’re difficult to find since they sit low and deep into the seat bight.
- Connecting the convertible seat’s chunky, rigid anchors was a bit of a chore in both forward- and rear-facing positions, in part due to the anchors’ deep positioning.
- Our booster seat fit well enough, but it’s floppy seat belt buckles fall behind the booster seat and would be difficult to grasp for kids trying to buckle themselves.
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 shorter 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.
