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MG MGF Technical - Child restraint for MGF?

Hi All,

Been some time since I've been on this site - guess my 'F has been running smoothly!

I have a young daughter (6 months) who I need to transport about. Mum loves her Jeep too much and I love my MGF to swap when we need to pick-up from child care ;-)

Anyway, I need to install a child seat for my daughter. I spoke to the local authority and they said it was fine providing I disable the passenger side airbag and also fit the capsule correctly.

So, my questions are as follows:

1. Has anyone installed a child seat in their MGF?

2. Are there restraint bolts somewhere in the car?

3. How do you disable the passenger side airbag? I'm hoping it's as simple as removing the fuse?

4. Any gotchyas?

Thanks

Sonny
S Foster

The passenger airbag CANNOT be disabled. It is an integral part of the SRS system.
MG Rover also did not recommend fitting child seats in an MGF/TF. The vehicle was never type approved with any type of child seat fitted. Lots of info available about this including documents from the original engineer from Longbridge.
Transam

You can disable both airbags in one go with the fuse. That may be an option but gives you a pretty red light. :-)

A properly fitted child car seat is, in my opinion, safe. But then you get into the realms of pen pushers etc telling you scary tales of how it's not allowed etc. Suffice to say I take my daughter in the (non airbag) passenger seat of my VX220 on a regular basis and the local traffic cops are fine with it legally and I am fine with it in terms of safety.

You *can* get an airbag switch for the passenger side from the US. They are approved in the legal minefield of the US. I was in touch with the manufacturers who advised me that it would fit the 'F and that they had supplied them to other MGFs in Europe. Alas, I sold the car before I went down that route.

hth,
Paul.
Paul Nothard

My daughter loves going out with me in the F and has done since she was very little (about 4 months!). Luckily my F does not have a passenger airbag however in terms of safety I think there are far more dangerous situations for her to be in then in a car with a good NCAP result in a properly fitted child seat.
James King

MG did sell a forward facing child seat EVY100060 which was 9 months to 4.5 years and also a booster cushion EVY 100040 long since discontinued.
Jon Baker

This came up as a topic on one of the other forums where Nic, one of MGR's former homologation, posts. Apparently TF was assessed with respect to child seats; they did not homologate the car as they were not satisfied that any of the seats fitted were secure enough... and he wasn't that happy about disabling the SRS either.

That all said, I use a Mamas and Pappas seat in our F (using TF seats), and this is extremely secure, with no adverse movement in it at all. I don't have the passenger airbag, so this is not a problem for me - and consequently, I've not looked into this very much further (Paul Nothard has - see his post above regarding US kit that is available).

HTH
Rob Bell

This thread was discussed between 21/05/2007 and 06/06/2007

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