I've got a dilema which is causing my wife to suggest that we have bought a duff car ! How dare she I hear you say......

Well, we've got another baby due at the end of April and as you're only recommended to use rear facing car seats for young babies it would be nice to put her in the front. However, you are also recommended not to use child seats in the front with an active Airbag.

Therefore our baby will need to go in the back and we won't be able to see her/his face. Neither of us are comfortable with this.

Does anyone have any suggestions on solving this ? I thought we could disable the Passenger airbag but Lexus Manchester told me it isn't possible without disabling ALL the airbags and they won't do it anyway.

Thanks in advance,
Trev.

that is a dilema and a half,
cant help you there
bit drastic getting another car tho
nice to see another local face tho (im in manchester)

you could put the baby in the back, in a rear facing seat, behind you, and you wife could put the passenger front seat all the forward, and sit next to the baby?


The IS does have the new, super dooper ISOFIX fittings in the back - so that is probably the best place for the seat, and with your wife beside the child, she could see his / her face, and check they are ok, make baby noises at them etc.

Sorry, forgot to mention we already have a little girl so my wife wouldn't fit in the back aswell.

Does anyone know of any mirrors that we could use ?

You can pick up [url="http://www.mothercare.com/mc_uk/shop/product_mc.jsp.html?BV_SessionID=@@@@1628774288.1046436268@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdadchhjeheiecfngcfkmdfffdgon.0&SessionAssigned=true&oid=145806"]mirrors[/url] exactly for this from Mothercare. We used them with ours.

We've got one of these at the moment. But if the seat in the back was rear facing all you'd see would be the back of the seat.

I was thinking of another one maybe on the back window or roof to then reflect to show the babies face.

That's what we did. Placed it at the rear, worked really well.

Are you sure there's an issue with rear facing seats and airbags - I thought it was only with front facing seats?

No, the instructions always state it is with the rear facing ones. To be honest I wouldn't place any newborn in a seat with an airbag. Irrespective of the way the seat is facing.

I think to use the front passenger seat with an airbag, you must be of a certain size and weight, so that the seatbelt holds you properly and the airbag inflates in the correct position relative to your body position. I'm sure I read somewhere that small children have been killed by airbags going off. Some manufacturer's are fitting weight sensors on the passenger seat to help with this, but I guess common sense is your best protection.

So if I understand correctly, the passenger seat airbag will go off in a crash anyway, passenger or not? There is a seatbelt warning light, that works with a sensor in the seat, maybe this is also used for airbag deployment?

Are there any IS drivers who have had their Airbags go off (hopefully they are okay and lived to tell..) Do all four of them always go off together?

Thanks and Cheers,

RX-Men-8

Both front airbags will go off if you have a front impact. The side ones go off if you are hit in the side.

Only the latest LS has a detector that will stop the passenger bag from going off it there is no passenger.

[quote]Are you sure there's an issue with rear facing seats and airbags - I thought it was only with front facing seats?[/quote]
Rear facing is much worse. The back of the seat will be very close to the airbag. NEVER fit a rear facing seat in the front with an active airbag.

[quote]The IS does have the new, super dooper ISOFIX fittings in the back - so that is probably the best place for the seat, and with your wife beside the child, she could see his / her face, and check they are ok, make baby noises at them etc.[/quote]
Only the face lift models have ISOFIX and I believe only front facing seats use this system. Rear facing seats do not.


I guess the only option would be to get behind the dashboard is disconnect the airbag. Don't know why Toyota do not provide a switch to do this - maybe there is still a risk that the airbag could go off????

[quote name='ColinBarber' date='Jan 17 2004, 10:32 PM']I guess the only option would be to get behind the dashboard is disconnect the airbag. Don't know why Toyota do not provide a switch to do this - maybe there is still a risk that the airbag could go off????[/quote]

Crawling around under the dash to disconnect the passenger side air bag is not recommended, the self test system that checks all the air bags are working correctly will register a fault and none of the air bags will work.

Air bags are not toys and shouldn't be played with unless you fully understand what your dealing with.

Note: Some manufactures do a fit a swtich normally operated by the ignition key and also allow the passenger side air bag to be swtiched off by resetting the PCM (certain Flags are changed from 1 to 0). These are the only ways you can disable the passenger side air bag and have nil effect to the operation to the other air bags fitted in the vehicle.

Firstly I'manother local (Stockport) so hi.
Had a similar problem a couple of years ago when our second was due and I had just bought our Lex. Our solution was a Brittax Rockatot in the back (the only Brottax rear facing seat that goes in an IS200 BTY) with the double Mothercare mirror arrangement.
Ours is in the cellar if you want it?