The Jeep Patriot was (due to its discontinue in 2016) a small, peppy crossover SUV marketed throughout the United States as a cheap, rugged, American icon. Competing with small SUVs like the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Nissan Rogue, Mazda CX-5, Subaru Forester, and Ford Escape, the Patriot (and its twin the Jeep Compass) is made in my home state of Illinois (in Belvidere, to be specific), and is one of the most popular SUVs around the Midwest. It features good safety scores, including strong roofs, side airbags (although it took far too long for Jeep to make side torso airbags standard in the Patriot and Compass), ESC, and good side impact scores.
As is the theme of this series, however, I was most interested in how it does when it comes to the all-important task of fitting 3 car seats across the back row. We’ll take a look at that in a second after reviewing some basic best practices in car seat configurations.
The safest configuration we know of when it comes to vehicle safety is rear-facing. This goes for adults as well, but it’s uncommon to find rear-facing seats for adults outside of trains. That said, rear-face your infants, toddlers, and preschoolers for as long as possible (ideally until 4!), before forward-facing them in harnessed convertible or combination seats (ideally until 8!). Once they outgrow their harnessed seats, it’s best to keep them restrained in high-back boosters until they’re physically and psychologically ready to use adult seat belt systems (which typically happens between 10 and 12). We want our little ones in the safest positions we know of for as long as possible to give them the greatest advantages in a collision.
Keeping these ideas in mind, I set to work to find which infant, convertible, combination, and booster seats would work best in 3 across combinations in the Jeep Patriot. It’s my goal to make this list the most thorough on the Internet. If you find the list helpful when shopping for car seats, you can shop through my Amazon link below. I’ll add more seats as I test them over time.
You can access the complete 3 across guide for every vehicle here and the complete list of recommended seats here. The Canadian car seat guide is here. 3 across car seat images are courtesy of Wikipedia.
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 Jeep Patriot
Guaranteed 3 across installations:
Clek Fllo (x3).
Clek Foonf (x3).
Diono Radian RXT (x3).
Diono Radian R120 (x3).
Diono Radian R100 (x3).
Chicco KeyFit 30 (x3).
Combi Coccoro (x3).
Clek Fllo, Diono Radian / RXT, Diono Radian / RXT.
Clek Fllo, Graco Size4Me 65, Diono Radian / RXT.
Chicco KeyFit 30, Clek Fllo, Chicco KeyFit 30.
Tips and Tricks:
The current and only generation of the Jeep Patriot is 174 inches long and 69 inches wide, making it about the width of a small (compact) or even mini (sub-compact) car, and about as difficult to use when it comes to 3 across car seat installations. That said, you can definitely make 3 across combinations work with a bit of practice, narrow seats, and of course, seat belt use instead of LATCH.
Remember to pick up a cheap angle adjuster if you’re planning on rear-facing with a Radian. It’s not mandatory, but it’ll make a night and day difference in the amount of leg room you have available as a driver or front-seat passenger when you pick it up.
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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.