Chest Clip, Buckle, Harness Related Problems of the 2016 Honda Accord

Chest Clip, Buckle, Harness problem

On 12/29/22, while in our driveway and preparing to leave home, our forward-facing daughter alerted us to a functionality issue with her car seat straps. The child was able to pull herself all the way forward while strapped into her car seat. After tightening the straps several times, the issue persisted and she continued to be able to fully loosen the straps by simply leaning forward. This demonstrated the way she would have flown forward in the event of an accident, because the straps were not properly restraining her. The car seat was removed from the vehicle and brought inside the home for closer inspection. The locking mechanism in the base of the seat, which typically allows a parent to tighten the straps but then locks the straps in place to prevent loosening, had clearly been rendered nonfunctional. Despite visually appearing functional and safe, the mechanism was not functioning correctly. At that time, a flashlight was used to inspect the mechanism closer. A very small shard of mulch was the culprit. We suspect this mulch must have fallen from our child’s clothing, fallen through the designated strap’s hole in the car seat cover, insidiously jammed itself into the locking mechanism during a routine tightening, and rendered the lock nonfunctional. We believe this to be a significant safety issue that could feasibly repeat without redesign of the mechanism and/or cover of the seat. The mechanism should not be designed in such a way that external items (mulch, food, etc) can interfere. We reported this issue to graco as well yesterday, 12/29/22. We also have a video of the carseat prior to the removal of the mulch shard demonstrating the nonfunctional mechanism.