I'm not entirely sure what's possessing me to ask this question now as I don't have kids nor will I, but my girlfriend and I may end up toting around her niece and nephew at some point this summer in my Explorer. They're 8 and 6 now; the 8-year-old might be in a booster seat by now but I'm pretty sure the 6-year-old still has to be in a car seat.

Last summer we did this as well. I had a 2003 Explorer that only had the 2 rows of seats so whenever we ended up using my truck and had the kids with us, their seats would go in and as far as the LATCH system goes, I did use the anchors that were in the lower seat crack to clip the bottoms of the car seats in place, then there was the tether anchor in the cargo area that I could tether the upper part of the seat to.

Well, that Explorer is now gone and I've gotten another 2003 Explorer but this one has the third row. And I don't see any apparent tethering anchors in the cargo area except for the two hooks all the way back by the liftgate. That would seem like quite a reach for the car seat strap if I were to use the second row; it almost seems like it would render the cargo area almost useless to have the seat strap reach that far. As I recall, the straps weren't even all that long and barely reached the tether hooks in the cargo area in the last Explorer.

I know 2003 was the first year for LATCH to be mandatory in all vehicles so I'm wondering if there are any other tethering points hidden somewhere if I were to use the second row? Heck, are there even any anchor or tethering points if I wanted to use the third row?

Unfortunately, this one doesn't have a manual so I can't reference that. And again I have no idea why I'm obsessing about this...LOL. Okay, I'm rambling. Thanks for any info!

 

If using either "side" of the second row seat in your former 2003 Explorer there should have been anchor points in the floor behind the second row to tether the upper strap to. You would only need to go to the cargo area if you were attempting to strap the car seat in to the middle position of the second row.

With the 3-row model you have now, there should be a LATCH tether point in the floor behind the second row for all three locations.

As for a copy of the owner's manual, you can download a PDF this site.

-Rod

 

Thanks. I think for my old Explorer, the tether point was behind the seat, somewhat in the cargo area, but still out of the way of being able to store stuff.

With my current 3-row, all I've done is flip one of the seats up and glanced around but didn't see a tether point behind the seat. I'll open it up a little more and really look around now that I'm thinking about it.

 

I got home this evening and had a chance to check this out again before losing daylight. Sure enough, the latches were there on the floor behind the second row. I did open the third row seat to really get a better look and there they were.

Thanks!