Does anyone have any pictures of child seats mounted in TS? It's hard
to visualize the problem with the tethers you're describing here.
How long do you have to keep child seats for? 2-3 years or more than that?
The center strap has an anchor on the roof - like the legacy. The
attachment point is dead center, at the top of the rear liftback. This
one is perfectly fine. The two outboard ones have their anchors on the
floor - back by the bottom of the rear liftback. The problem is that
you now have a strap running from the middle of the two outboard seating
positions (top of seat) to the floor at the back of the liftback. This
"angled" strap consumes some of your usable space. You essentially
narrow your usable space by (IIRC) 8-10 inches per side. It's certainly
not the end of the world, but you need to be aware of it. They should
have done them like they did on the Legacy and had all three across the
top.
Kids are in tethered carseats from roughly 8 months old to 4 years -
depending on their weight. Before and after that the seats don't have
tethers anymore. So if an "average" couple bought their car on the day
they had their first of 2 kids (spaced 2 years apart), they'd most
likely have:
1) 0-8 months - no tether
2) 9 mo - 2 yr - center tether
3) 2yr - 2yr 8mo - one outboard tether
4) 2yr 8mo - 4 yr - two outboard tether
5) 4yr - 6 yr - one outboard tether
6) 6 yr + - no tether
Everyone is different, but the above is the most observed way of
handling multiple carseats. YMMV, of course.
Oh, another thing. I could speculate that TS depreciates slower than RS
due to higher utility. At least I'd expect it's easier to sell it if you
have to.
Possibly. You're selling to different markets though. There's a
smaller market for "sport sedans", but that helps keep prices up too.
I'll find out sometime in the next 10 years I guess.
