just bought a new car....and the 3 x car seats wont fit !!

[mbear]

We just bought a Honda Odyssey (YAY ). Get home this arvo, DH pretty sure the car seats would fit (1 x safe n sound rearward facing, 2 x maxi riders). We used to have a ford falcon and the 3 x car seats fitted in their AOK.

Anyway, they dont fit . DH says we need to replace the maxi riders with new car seats - but i dont want too. I think the maxis are sooo safe, and besides the fact i have $800 worth of car seat sitting there doing nothing, I dont want to go out and spend more money on car seats.
I guess what im asking is, if we replace 1 x maxi with a booster seat for 4.5 year old is that safe? What is the safest brand?
I dont want to compromise on safety but feel i am.....oh gawd.......

Suggestions ??

[Pandora]

are the SnS explorers any smaller - they actually got a higher saftey rating on the choice tests.

[mbear]

just googled and MR and Explorer are exactly the same dimensions.

Ive just rang Littlies car restraint people, a guy called Sam is going to call me back.

[AnyDream]

Mbear, we had our DD in a booster seat at age 4, we used the anchor point for an over the shoulder harness that runs through the seat belt, so that fit her really well too. I HTH.

[Mel09]

as long as he weighs more than 14kgs he can go in a foam booster, sns pegasus are great, or the sns high liner is thiner... check out a professional car restraint fitting service for advice, they are great and can tell you what to get.

[Trillian]

We just used an ordinary safe n sound booster seat for the kids when they were 2 and an ordinary seatbelt, but you can buy a 5 point harness attachment that will fit on the adult seatbelt and can be fixed to the anchor point (which is what MD is talking about I think?)

[mbear]

The Littles car restraint guy ended up calling back twice this evening - god i love good customer service- he is coming around at 7am tomorrow morn to install all 3 car seats - he says a Britax Hi-liner will fit in the car and can be used for DD whom is 4. We can then use my 1 x MR and my SNS rear facing one too...Phew.

He also said he's fitted 4 x car seats in the Odysseys before (3 in 1st row, 1 in 2nd row), so feel a bit reasurred now....

[Pandora]

Thats great mbear