2002 Mazda Tribute Owner's Manual - Page 128

Seating and Safety Restraints Attaching safety seats with LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) attachments for child seat anchors Some child safety seats have two rigid or webbing mounted attachments that connect to two anchors at certain seating positions in your vehicle. When properly installed, this type of seat eliminates the need to use seat belts to attach the child seat. For forward-facing child seats, the tether strap must also be attached to the proper tether anchor. See Attaching safety seats with tether straps in this chapter. Your vehicle has LATCH anchors for child seat installation as shown in the illustration. There are none in the front passenger seat. The anchors closest to the center rear seat are provided primarily for child seats at the outboard seating positions. These anchors are farther apart than the pairs of lower anchors for child seat installation at the outboard seats. While the anchors closest to the center seat may also be usable, special precautions must be followed. First, if those anchors are already in use by a LATCH equipped child seat on either outboard seat, you must not attach two LATCH seats to the same anchor point - it will overload the anchor point. Either spread the two LATCH equipped seats to the outboard positions or use the regular lap belt on the center one (If the seat has a tether, be sure to also attach it to the center tether anchor). Secondly, those LATCH equipped child seats with rigid LATCH attachments will not latch in the center rear position because those two middle anchors are too far apart. You can only attach the rigid LATCH equipped child seats to the outboard seat LATCH anchors that have the proper spacing for that type of child seat. If your child seat has flexible LATCH attachments, be sure that the manufacturer's instructions say that it can reach to anchors spaced at least 500 mm (19 in) apart. WARNING: Never attach two LATCH child safety seats to the same anchor. In a crash, one anchor may not be strong enough to hold two child safety seat attachments and may break, causing serious injury or death. 128