Chicco NextFit: Too Much Slack In the Harness Straps

Do you have extra harness slack, and you can't figure out why? When you go to strap your child in, do you find that you can't tighten the straps as tight as you did before? Or are the straps as tight as they need to be, but there is more "tail" in the harness adjuster strap than you're accustomed to? There is usually one cause, and one fix. Grab a screwdriver and your phone: you need to call Chicco and ask for the instructions to replace/rethread the harness.

Really? Call Chicco?

Yep. Don't worry, you haven't voided the warranty on the seat, they won't give you a hard time for needing these instructions, and no, you don't need to sit there on the phone with them while they walk you through the steps. Just tell them the harness isn't threaded over the rollers of your NextFit and you need the instructions to rethread the harness. They'll email you PDF of simple instructions with picture illustrations (since I do much better with picture illustrations, I have to say these are top notch!) and you can rethread the harness at your own speed.

Do This ASAP!

If you find yourself in the situation I described above, you need to rethread the harness before letting your child ride in the seat again. With the straps threaded incorrectly, the seat will not perform as expected in a crash, and the results could be anywhere from negligible to catastrophic. I'm not saying this to make you feel bad if you haven't noticed the extra strap length before (some parents don't notice until they try to adjust the seat from big kid settings to little baby settings), but now that you've discovered the error, it is imperative to fix it ASAP.

How Do I Know This Is the Problem?

Well, mostly because this is the only reason I've ever seen for there to be extra slack in the harness. But, for easy proof that the straps need to be rethreaded, take a look at the back of your seat. Lift up the cover right under the headrest. If you can see the rollers (they're either orange or gray, depending on when your seat was made) but no strap, that means the straps need to be rethreaded.

So What Should It Look Like?

I'm so glad you asked! Here is a series picture of the NextFit, taken from the back.

These are two different NextFit seats. The seat on top is an older generation NextFit (made before October 2013) and has gray rollers. The cover had been removed for washing, which makes it very easy to see the straps threaded over the rollers. The strap in the middle running down the back of the seat is the top tether, properly stored. (My thanks to Amy Bucklin for permission to use the picture of her seat). The two pictures on the bottom are my seat, made in April 2014. I had to lift up the seat cover to expose the rollers (you can kind of see my hand, thumb, and cover in the upper corners of each picture), and the rollers are yellow. These pictures show the same thing as the picture on top: the straps are threaded over the rollers. Again, the vertical strap is the top tether.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQcKW39otNw

If you do better with videos than with pictures, I've got you covered!

And here's a behind-the-scenes picture of what the straps should look like when they are correctly threaded over the rollers. The headrest is raised to the highest position and the straps are just about as tight as I could get them, given the Comfort Kit holding the hip straps at a slight angle. You can kind of see how much adjuster strap is available (remember, a longer adjuster strap when the shoulder straps have been tightened is a sign that the straps are not threaded correctly).

How did this even happen?

I almost didn't include this section, because I don't want you to get hung up on the how or why, but focus instead on getting it fixed. But I'm a completionist, so decided to put this section near the end.

This happens when someone lifts up the back panel attached to the headrest, unhooks the straps from the splitter plate, pulls the strap out from the slot in the headrest panel, does whatever they thought necessary, thread the straps back through the headrest portion, and attach them to the splitter plate. Since the only way to thread the straps over the rollers is to remove the back of the NextFit, you can see how this would introduce several inches of slack into the harness. The most common reason for doing this is to remove the first-generation shoulder pads from the straps, despite the instructions on the Chicco website citing how to properly remove the shoulder pads from the straps. If you have a first generation NextFit (the Date of Manufacture, or DOM will be a date prior to October 2013) and want to remove the shoulder pads, I'd highly recommend removing them as directed on Chicco's website to prevent this rethreading problem. This is not the only reason I've seen given for why the owner thought it necessary to remove the straps, simply the most common.

To Wrap Up

So, to wrap up: if you find that there is extra strap available (either the adjuster strap is longer than expected when the straps are tightened, or the straps are as tight as they can be but there's still too much slack around the child), lift up the material to see if the straps are threaded over the rollers. If you see rollers but no straps, you need to call Chicco and ask for the instructions to rethread the harness straps and wrangle up a Phillips head screwdriver. When you're done rethreading the harness but before you close up the seat, double check your seat against the picture above to make sure everything matches up. Close up the seat and enjoy your like-new, can-now-be-fully-tightened NextFit seat!

A Year Later...

(Added January 1, 2017)

Here we are, another year older, another year wiser, and I have found I need to add this section.  Folks, please.  Do not post your email address in comments.  For liability reasons, I am no longer comfortable sending out the instructions as I have in the past, mostly because (as I state in my disclaimer below) I am not affiliated with Chicco.  PLEASE call Chicco directly for these instructions.

Also, PLEASE do not try to finagle your way through the fix without the instructions.  Yes, it's a simple fix, and at the same time, YES, it's possible to miss a couple of steps.  If certain steps are missed, then the headrest won't lock in place as you change its position.

All requests for instructions or comments on how you found the solution on your own will be deleted from now on.

The views, instructions, and opinions in this blog are solely my own. I am not a CPST, I am not affiliated with CSFTL, nor am I a Chicco representative. No money was made from this article, and though I strive for accuracy in all things, any errors are my own.