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.
This type of child 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. SeeAttaching safety seats with
tether strapsin this chapter.
Your vehicle may be equipped with LATCH anchors for child seat
installation at the seating positions with gray locator buttons.
²Bucket seats
²60/40 seats
represents LATCH anchors.
represents tether strap anchors.
To improve child seat protection, use the tether anchor when using the
LATCH to install a child safety seat. SeeAttaching child safety seats
with tether straps in this section.
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.
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145
WARNING: Do not put the LATCH type seat in the center seat
position Ð it only has one possible anchor point and the seat
will not be properly attached.
WARNING: If there are two LATCH seats to install Ð you can
only mount one LATCH seat in this vehicle with the LATCH
anchor bars. You need to mount the second seat with the center
seat belt using the normal lap belt method.
WARNING: Do not attach two seats to one LATCH anchor bar.
Connectors on the LATCH child seat
and the child seat instructions may
use the symbol shown here. Your
vehicle seat will have plain gray
buttons, instead of this symbol, to indicate the location of the LATCH
lower anchors.
The lower anchors for child seat
installation are located at the rear
section of the front passenger seat
between the cushion and seat back.
The LATCH anchors are below the
gray locator buttons on the seat
back. Two plastic LATCH guides
may be purchased from your local
Mazda dealer (part number
1F60±57±751). They snap onto the
latch lower anchor in the vehicle to
help attach a child seat with rigid
latch attachments. It will hold the
seat foam away and expose the
anchor making attachment of the
child seat easier.
Make sure you attach the proper
child safety seat tether after
securing the LATCH.
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146
