The Ford Escape is one of the most popular small SUVs available today in the United States, and is a common SUV of choice for small families and young professionals. It competes with small SUVs like the Honda CR-V, Subaru Forester, Mazda CX-5, and Toyota RAV4 among parents interested in a safe and economical means of transporting their children to school, home, and around the various areas of everyday life. As a result, I was happy to have the chance to look into how the current generation of the Ford Escape did when it came to fitting multiple car seats.
You know the basics of best practices in car seat safety: rear-face as long as possible (ideally until 4!), and then forward-face as long as possible (ideally until at least 6!), and then booster until a regular belt fits your child (which typically happens between 10 and 12). The goal is to keep kids restrained as safely as possible for as long as possible.
However, you’re going to need to know which car seats in particular will fit in your Ford Escape in order to make the most of best practices, which is why I’ve spent a few weekends putting together this list of car seats that will fit in a Ford Escape. You’ll see the usual suspects here, in terms of Radians, Foonfs, and Fllos, but there are also NextFits, Frontiers, and other seats present. The basic idea is that there are a number of seats you can make work in 3 across configurations in the latest Escape as long as you’re willing to work for it a bit.
You can access the complete 3 across guide for every vehicle here and the complete list of recommended car seats here. Canadian car seat recommendations are here. 3 across car seat images are courtesy of Wikipedia.
2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 Ford Escape
Guaranteed 3 across installations:
Clek Fllo (x3).
Clek Foonf (x3).
Diono Radian R120 (x3).
Diono Radian R100 (x3).
Diono Radian RXT (x3).
Chicco KeyFit 30 (x3).
Combi Coccoro (x3).
Graco Size4Me 65 (x3).
Chicco NextFit, Diono Radian / RXT, Britax Frontier 90.
Chicco NextFit, Diono Radian / RXT, Britax Pioneer 70.
Recaro Performance Ride, Recaro ProRIDE, Recaro Performance Sport.
Tips and Tricks:
This generation of the Ford Escape is 178 inches long and 72 inches wide. This is about the width of a mid-sized car, which means there are a lot of options, relatively speaking, for a 3 across installation by width. The shorter length of the Escape, however, means that front to back space might be more of a challenge than it would be in a mid-sized car. In general, the basic suggestion of using seat belts instead of LATCH connectors to make a 3 across installation more likely still applies here. The good news is that there are a number of recommended car seats compatible with the Escape in 3 across configurations at every budget.
As with every generation of the Escape, however, given the rather short length of the crossover, you’ll want to keep your front-to-back space in mind if you’d like to use the Dionos; I strongly recommend getting the angle adjuster so you won’t make driving your Escape or sitting in the front passenger seat a negative experience.
2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Ford Escape
Guaranteed 3 across installations:
Clek Fllo (x3).
Clek Foonf (x3).
Diono Radian R120 (x3).
Diono Radian R100 (x3).
Diono Radian RXT (x3).
Chicco KeyFit 30 (x3).
Combi Coccoro (x3).
Tips and Tricks:
This generation of the Ford Escape is 175 inches long and 71 inches wide, or about 3 inches shorter and 1 inch narrower than the current generation. However, it’s still possible to fit a decent range of car seats into it, especially if you’re willing to use seat belt installations.
As with every generation of the Escape, however, given the rather short length of the crossover, you’ll want to keep your front-to-back space in mind if you’d like to use the Dionos; I strongly recommend getting the angle adjuster so you won’t make driving your Escape or sitting in the front passenger seat a negative experience.
2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Ford Escape
Guaranteed 3 across installations:
This generation of the Ford Escape is 173-175 inches long depending on whether you have a pre-2005 or 2005 or later model, and 70 inches wide, or about 0-3 inches shorter and 1 inch narrower than the following generation. However, it’s still possible to fit a decent range of car seats into it, especially if you’re willing to use seat belt installations.
As with every generation of the Escape, however, given the rather short length of the crossover, you’ll want to keep your front-to-back space in mind if you’d like to use the Dionos; I strongly recommend getting the angle adjuster so you won’t make driving your Escape or sitting in the front passenger seat a negative experience.
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.