Pickups: How Do Tether Anchors on Backseat Sides Work?
CARS.COM — The 2017 Honda Ridgeline and variants of the 2017 Nissan Frontier and 2017 Toyota Tacoma have their tether anchors in an out-of-the-way place: on the sides of the rear seats. There are two other tether-anchor setups in pickup trucks: behind the rear seatbacks and tether loops near the head restraints.
Related: More Pickup Truck News
The side placement setup adds complexity to a difficult process, but it’s important that parents use a forward-facing convertible or combination car seat’s tether straps: The use of tether straps reduces a child’s head movement in a crash by 6 to 8 inches.
Trucks With Tethers on the Sides of Rear Seats
How to Use Tethers on the Side of the Rear Seats
In these trucks, the tether anchors are found on the sides of the rear seats near the doors. Thankfully, only a few pickups have this tether setup.
In the Toyota Tacoma Access Cab with rear seats, first remove the tether anchor and tether routing device covers. Install the car seat using the lower Latch anchors or seat belt and then route the tether strap through the routing anchor, which is found at the top of the seatback. Then connect the tether hook to the tether anchor on the side of the seat and tighten the tether strap.
The redesigned 2017 Honda Ridgeline has this same setup. During our Car Seat Check, we discovered that our Britax Marathon convertible car seat’s tether strap wasn’t long enough to reach the tether anchor. To install the car seat, we moved it to the middle seating position, where the tether anchor is found between the back and bottom seat cushions.
