isofix car seats

[augustmum]

Can someone please explain Isofix to me?!

Am I right in thinking that it is a fairly recent addition to cars, so if our cars are pre 2000 then they are unlikely to have isofix points?
How do you find out if your car has isofix points?
If our cars don't have isofix , which are the recommended group 1 seats?

Dus to complicated child care arrangements, we need to get a seat which is easy to transfer between 4 different (oldish) cars.

Sorry for so many questions - hope someone can help!

The Isofix points are metal hoops or rings and they are set into the seam of the seat, where the back meets the seet. If you push your hand in between the back and the seat and run it along you should be able to feel whether you have them or not.

In my car the Isofix points have little covers on them, so you can see the covers but not the rings. If you push on the cover it folds back to reveal the ring.

Do you have any shops near you that do seat fitting as part of the sales service? They would be able to check whether you have Isofix in a trice.

There have been a few threads about the Which report on car seats, if you do a search on "Which", "report" and "car seat" it ought to bring them up.

You can still use an isofix carseat in a non-isofix car using the standard seatbelt way. I've done this with a few of mine when putting in a friend's car etc. So if two of the cars you're using do have isofix and two don't, you could still get an isofix seat.

TBH there still aren't many available at group 1 and the safety issues aren't as critical as they are with group 0 car seats (mainly afaik, because you're taking a group 0 car seat in and out all the time, thus more likely to fix it incorrectly).