The Jeep Compass is a small, peppy, and rather popular (at least in the Midwest) SUV-crossover buggy sold throughout the United States. It goes head to head with the ever-growing small SUV market, which features luminaries such as the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Nissan Rogue, Mazda CX-5, Subaru Forester, Ford Escape, and its Jeep twin the Patriot. It has a range of good safety scores, with the exception of its small overlap score, which remains poor, and was surprisingly one of the small SUVs with the lowest driver death rates measured in the most recent IIHS survey, which I wrote about extensively here.
Given my fondness of the Compass, I had to see if it were as viable of a 3 across vehicle as the other small crossovers in its class. The good news is that it’s basically the same as the Patriot on the inside in terms of the back seat, which means you’ll be able to fit several seats there when using the seat belts. Before looking at the seats, here are a few best practice readings on why it’s worth using certain seats at certain ages.
The safest configuration we know of when it comes to vehicle safety is rear-facing. This goes for adults as well! 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 Compass. 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.
2017 Jeep Compass (coming soon; it’s still in production!)
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 Jeep Compass
Guaranteed 3 across installations:
Clek Fllo (x3).
Clek Foonf (x3).
Diono Radian RXT (x3).
Diono Radian R120 (x3).
Diono Radian R100 (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:
There is only one generation of the Jeep Compass so far, and it’s 173 inches long and slightly more than 69 inches wide. In other words, it’s about the width and length of a small car, although it sits significantly higher than one. That said, despite its size, you’ll still be able to stuff a range of car seats into it if you’re willing to take your time and use the seat belts. Using LATCH will only frustrate you when working with a vehicle this narrow side-to-side.
Because of the length of the vehicle, if you want to make the most of your money, I’d strongly recommend Radians due to the minimal amount of space they take up with angle adjusters; your legs and front-row passengers will thank you.
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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.