Weird - mine doesn't do that at all. If you end up dumping it, let me know - I might buy it from you. My seats are leatherette and the seats in the van are leather, and there is no such compression in either vehicle. I wonder if my seats are just more rigid than the cloth (assuming that's cloth I'm seeing)? Also, because the child's pelvis sits slightly forward in the Safeguard, they are positioned such that if they do fall asleep, their heads don't fall forward. This is even true in the Mini Cabrio, which, as you know, basically has a bolt upright rear seat with very little, if any, recline. This seat wouldn't work in the back of my old Porsche 996 as those back seats essentially tilt forward.

Can't really say if it's installed incorrectly, but I will say that I believe the top plastic portion where the head rests seems to be higher in mine than what I'm seeing in the picture. I'm talking about the actual seat back, not the sliding side rests or that foam head rest. That might have something to do with the compression (decreasing the arc of the straps), but I don't really know.

 

Hmm, any chance you will be around today that I might stop by and see how your seat compares to mine? I'm going to be in the Monterey Park area this afternoon.

Yep, I've got the Space Cloth seats.

With the child's pelvis slightly forward, is the upright seatback of the carseat rigid? The part that concerns me is that it's just a flexible seatback that doesn't seem to offer any sort of support. I'll try to document what I'm seeing.

It appears that my carseat would work great if I could get enough top tension to pull the seat back up and straight sits its not rigid to stand up on its own.

Do you have the headrest in place over the tether strap?

Richard

 

Unfortunately I'm not - I'm just about to head out for day. I'll bring it down when I finally get around to doing that detail we spoke about - hopefully in the coming week or so.

I understand what you are saying re: the seat back. To me, the whole point of the seat is that it uses the rigidity of the existing seat back for primary support. If installed correctly, it should just kinda fall into the shape of the existing seat back and use that as the support, hence opening up more space. That's when you pull up the rear straps and attach to the back achor point. So you're hunch is correct.

To answer your final question - yes, I do have the headrest in place over the back tethers (you're referring to the one with the velcro straps, not the side headrests, right?). Admittedly that part of the seat works better in the van, which has a real, detachable headrest, but I have no problems attaching the velcro headrest in the Mini. If you're referring to the side headrests, you may have seen that there are slots that the back straps slide into, allowing (if properly installed) the side headrests to shift up and down in height to accommodate different-sized kids without having to take out the whole seat. The tensioned rear straps keep the side headrest in place - it's not a permanent setting.

I've never examined them up close, but it appears to me that back of the Space Cloth seats don't have nearly the same support as those in the back of the Cabrio or perhaps leatherette in general. Not sure what to do about that other than raise the back headrest to creat more of an upside-down 'J' as opposed to an upside-down 'U' where the strap makes it's way over the seatback and down to the rear anchor point.

 

Here is the seat installed in the Mini...

 

thanks for the additional info. I spent some time trying to optimize the seat and it just doesn't look like the seat is "compatible" with Space Cloth. I tried two tether configurations--trying actually exactly as you suggested before I saw your post.

Cloth compresses very easily with only rigid support being on the back portion of the seat.






The tether attaches to the seatback here


But just for kicks I tried attaching it to the anchor towards the back of the boot


That actually didn't help the compression very much and it prevented me from putting the cargo cover back on.


The best routing was the normal place, and I just did my best to cinch it tight.


I removed the headrest because it has to stick up too high blocking rearward vision.


The real test will be to see how my son sits in it. The only changes I've made have been to tighten all the straps to ensure the seat sits as flat as possible against the MINI seats. Otherwise, I guess I know who might want to buy this nice brand new seat. LOL.

Richard

 

For sure - I've had so much success with mine that 'm looking at possibly getting another one. I may be leaving with a clean car and a new seat.

The only other thing I can offer is this: I had the fire department do one of those seat inspections and they said (I've also read this) that there is no need to crank the seat back straps down so tight that it doesn't move at all. The main thing is that the slack is taken up and that the bottom LATCH straps are as tight as humanly possible. They said up to one inch of play is OK on the back, meaning you may not need to crank down the back strap as tight as you are. Don't hold me to that seeing as how I'm not at all familiar with those cloth seats and how everything works together as a system.

 

Thanks. The only reason I tried to cinch the tether tight was because it's the only thing that holds and supports the car seat back. If the tether is loose, the car seat seat back wants to fold back up accordion style and that seems to cause my son to sit awkwardly.

FWIW, I'm a lot more open minded to seeing this work--my wife on the other hand is trying to prove me wrong and make me feel guilty about this whole thing. You know--why fix something that "ain't broke" sort of mentality.

Richard

 

My wife just laughs at me and rolls her eyes.

She did see the merits of this seat right away, however.

Maybe it's just a simple function of this working on leatherette and nothing else as far as Mini is concerned. The only Mini experience I have with these has all been in Cabs with leatherette. It's been aces in every other vehicle I've tried.

Bright side: Your wife won't be able to make you feel guilty if you sell the thing to me!

 

Before I write this idea off, I'm looking at a slightly crazy solution that my wife certainly wouldn't approve of, however, its something that I'm very interested in, and that's buying a NAM members leather interior..front seats and rear seats, lol. Yeah all of this inspired by a $200 car seat, lol.

 

I saw those - sweet. Was considering getting into a bidding war with you!

 

Oh don't you dare!!! Lol. Those seats are sweet though. I would have specd those had I custom ordered my MINI. The cloth seats leave a lot to be desired for. But I thought the exhaust, aerokit skirts, and recent mods were the last of my mods for awhile. Lol, guess I can make these seats my last mods, lol.

The shipping costs from NoVa will be a factor though. Of course I'm not ruling out a roadtrip either, lol.

Richard

 

My husband and I both have MINIs and we just had twins:

It can work!