We have a car seat system which comprises a base and a car seat. My wife, my mother-in-law and me share two car seat bases. So sometimes we might have to move the base between cars.
- One car has latch points so that is basically the easiest to install.
- The in-law's car has just a lap belt in the middle back seat and in my opinion is the next easiest to install.
- Our third car has shoulder/lap belts in the back and is the hardest to install correctly in my opinion.
I can install the base tightly and securely for the first two cars. However, I can never really get it super tight with the shoulder/lap belt.
My question is...generally how tight should the car seat base be? In the installation videos, the person demonstrating just hand tightens it. However when I brought it to my local Police Dept when I installed the base for the first time, they basically used their whole body to tighten it. The officer was pulling on the belt with his hands and using his foot (and knee at times) to push base snuggly against the car.
In my mind, the tighter the better so that in case of a crash, the infant car seat has less room to move around. I can't seem to find any definitive answer online. You can't measure the tightness of the straps that are cinching the car seat base against the car.
I know that this is probably a question for the manufacturer, but I thought that I get people's educated opinion.