Fiat 500L

2014-2018 Fiat 500L

Introduced for 2014, this vehicle is poorly designed and extremely inhospitable for car seats for several reasons:

1. The VERY large bump at the seat bight (crease between the seat back and seat bottom) will push most car seats & boosters too far away from the back of the vehicle seat.

2. The lower anchors are located on top of the bump at the seat crease – and whenever they are elevated like this, it makes it harder to get a car seat installed tightly enough. Despite this, LATCH is going to be your best bet for installing a car seat on one of the two side seats as the seat belts are anchored in a position that will be even worse for car seats, but many car seats won’t tolerate the large bump at the bight.

3. The placement of the seat belt buckles about 5 inches forward of the bight will make it impossible to achieve a secure installation of a forward-facing car seat with the seat belt (and prevent many rear-facing car seats from installing securely with the seat belt as well).

The one thing this back seat is great for… adults wearing seat belts – as the seat belt buckles far forward of the bight allows the seat belt to fit great on an adult’s hips.