Additional seat for california SE T5

[Allie Park]

Hi all. We have a 2015 T5 cali SE.

We have a 20month old now which means we cant transport my 2 step daughters around with us when we have him in the van. We would like to add the 5th seat but have a few questions. Thought we would try you guys for advice before speaking to our dealer.

1) what's a good price to get one secondhand or would you go through dealer and get them to fit it initially?

2) is it forward or rear facing.

3) how much space is left to side of it for luggage etc. Is this space easily accessible for smaller bags etc

4) how easy is it to get in and out. We would probably keep it in the van for the toddler seat and take it out for camping trips. The van is used more as a car these days but hope to get back to regular camping next spring when little one is two and more likely to enjoy it.

Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions. If you know of any seats second hand please feel free to email me with details on alliejanepark@+++++.com (we are hertfordshire based)

 

[AndyFromTheBrac]

I find it ideal. We’ve had ours since my now 7 year old was a similar age to yours. There are only 3 of us but we have the seat in place so that we can take 5 some times.

The seat can swivel and travel rear facing, but you would want to have it forward facing with a suitable rear facing car seat.

I mount it on the kitchen side of the rail which means he has a great view out the front as the seat is in between the front two. This also means there is still some space by the sliding door for bags etc.

It reduces the legroom on the rear bench by the kitchen side dramatically unless you push back the bench (which means removing the rear luggage cover/mattress). This is the one irritation I have with the setup as there isn’t much you can do with the luggage cover other than take it out or possibly stand it up and strap it to the back of the rear bench. If you do the latter then you lose more storage space in the boot. Camping would be an issue but it’s doable. Search “Cali Camper Family” on YouTube which shows how a family of 5 camp.

Taking the cover out, you have plenty of luggage space.

The seat is heavy. No, make that HEAVY. I can manage it on my own but only just. Ideally a 2-person job.

So it does compromise things a little, but I find it great and leave the seat in place until we go on a camping trip. For kids it would be ideal and you could probably get away with the limited rear legroom and not have to push the bench back.

We have the grandparents etc to occasionally accommodate hence the faff around with the rear.


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