Anybody Running 3 Car Seats?

2020 Crewmax. Bought 3 Graco Slimfit 3LX car seats for our 3 kids. Tried to install one forward facing and two rear facing in the back seat of the truck. It doesn't seem to be possible to get the middle seat so it doesn't slide around because of the shape of the truck seat (convex where all other seats are concave).

I think the big challenge is that the middle seat doesn't have UAS connectors. So I tried using the auto retracting feature of the seatbelt but to get it tight enough, it pulls one side of the car seat up. I also tried with one of those locking clips but it had the same effect.

Has anyone gotten this to work?

 

I used industrial grade chain extensions to hook onto when I had a rear facer in the middle between 2 front facers. Worked well. Have you tried any extensions?

 

Sorry, I'm not sure what extensions are or how I would use them and Google was not helpful.

 

I guess they are called quick links

 

And you hooked those into the UAS anchors? My issue is there are only 2 sets of anchors - one for each of the outboard seats - and what I've read is that you can't hook two car seats to the same anchor unless your owner's manual specifically allows it, which it doesn't look like the Tundra manual does.

 

What happened to the days when you could have them sit on your right knee and lean against your right arm holding the wheel while you held the Coors Banquet in your left hand with a cigarette between your fingers?

(sorry - not helping… )

 

I'm all for it but Momma Bear is really uptight about this shit.

 

They have to say that for liability but it's better than not using them at all. I hooked the quick link into the anchor and hooked tbe car seat hooks to that. For the middle seat I hooked one clip to the inner most link on each side of the car then I used the seat belt too. I trusted it completely it was really solid. All 3 seats had barely any play.

 

Alternatively you can use seat belt and the top anchor point that goes to the back of the back seats and leave the seat anchors for just the muddle car seat. It'll stil be solid.

 

We've done three car seats in the double cab, but they weren't all the same so we were able to offset front facing, rear facing, front facing. Our youngest rides in the middle seat for easiest access on road trips and we used the anchor points for the left and right seats. There was always enough room to double up the strap anchors on the two inner anchors. Securing the middle seat with the seatbelt always let the car seat wobble and shake too much. We also removed head rests to let the car seats to sit back further; else it felt like they had 8-12" of gap where the seat contour didn't match the car seat contour.

 

I have a forward facing Diono Radian 3r in the middle, it is secured with the regular seat belt and tether. It is the slimmest of their models and I am confident you could fit three across. A booster fits fine on either side currently. I have two other Diono seats in the Sequoia and am very happy with them, but they are slightly wider and didn’t fit as well in the Tundra.

Here is a pic: