I've owned my car for 1/2 year and just now noticed this.

The buckle for the middle rear position appears to be on the wrong side of the driver's side rear buckle - that is, the middle buckle has to be crossed in front of or behind the driver's side buckle, making both tight and difficult to use. Without doing this it is on the "inside" of the driver's side buckle and gets in the way.

I dug around there as best I could thinking I could reposition it but it seems it's just made that way, unless I'm missing something (anyone know how to remove a UL rear seat bottom, I'm guessing it's a pain?).

I'll probably just take it to the dealer and ask but was wondering first if anyone here can relate.

 

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls4...-01-03-ul.html

It's really easy to pull the rear seats out after you do it once. First, extend the rear seats as far forward as they can go. Then using the pictures I've attached below, pull up on the seats at the locations of those hooks. It will take a little bit of force to snap the seats out of those hooks. You can feel around or look under the seats first to find these hooks to make sure you are pulling as close to the hooks as possible.

Once the seats are unhooked, there is one connector on each side of the car. Squeeze the connector to remove it. Pics are in the above URL. After these connectors are removed, you can lift the seat bottoms out.

You will be able to straighten the seatbelts now. To remove the seatbelts from the holder at the top of the seats, insert a small flathead screwdriver into the back of the belt holders.

Let me know if you need any other details.

 

Thanks so much Stan, that is hugely helpful!!

So I pulled off the driver's section and everything looks OK. And in studying that first photo from the link you posted, that guy's buckles are in the exact same position - with the middle buckle closer to the outside seat than the outside seat's buckle. Weird - I guess it's designed that way but I can't figure out why. Anyone else have trouble buckling both that side and middle belt, or there some obvious trick I'm just missing?

 

I actually didn't read your problem correctly the first time, thought you said your middle seatbelt was crossed over from top to bottom.

Regarding your problem, I noticed the same thing 2 weeks ago when I pulled my seats and thought it was very odd. I've had the car for 1.5 years. I have a full backseat often and no one ever said anything about it.

 

I also just noticed this on our new-to-us-LS430. With a Britax booster seat in the middle, it is almost impossible to buckle the rear driver's side seat belt. Turns out there are seat belt extenders that you can get from Amazon. However, there are so many seat belt types that I couldn't figure out which was appropriate. I called the Lexus dealership and they said you can get the extenders for free but I need to take the car in for them to look at and fill out some form. Will let others know how the process goes, I plan to go tomorrow during lunch.

 

So I went to Lexus of Sacramento today and they were a little reluctant to give out the seat belt extenders. The gave me the form to fill out and bring back later (as they were pretty busy during the lunch rush). If I don't qualify for the free seat belt extenders then I will just order it from SeatBeltExtenderPros. I would order it from Amazon but I'm not sure which "type code" of seat belt extender I need to match the LS430 and Lexus wouldn't give out that info.

I love our LS430, but with all the supposed engineering and attention to detail that went into the design of this fantastic vehicle, how come they couldn't include adjustable-length seat belt buckles? Or at least don't arrange it so that the middle and driver's side rear belt buckles cross. Did they not test a simple scenario of a carseat in the middle? Granted, our carseat is one of the wider ones but the seat belt design is still perplexing. Below is the form you have to fill out for Lexus if you want to request free seat belt extenders.

 

I decided not going to the dealership for free seat belt extenders since they placed all kinds of restrictions and made so many excuses about how a person has to meet strict criteria to even be considered for the free versions. Just ordered them online from SeatBeltExtenderPros instead. Now, additional passengers can safely be belted in when sitting in the backseat beside the carseat.

 

Just remove the drivers side rear seat and switch the belt holders. They are still tight but they are in the wright order. A 14mm boxed end wrench is all you need.

 

Thanks for the idea, rbock. Even with the buckles swapped, it's the combination of wide car seat and belt buckle depth (or lack there of) that creates the issue. The rear passenger-side buckle is exposed but still very hard to get buckled in. The only way to do so is to buckle the seat belt first, then crawl under the seat belt -- not very practical. And then, once "belted in" I didn't have enough space to unbuckle the seat belt to get out. The seat belt retraction had locked and I couldn't get any more slack. I almost panicked because I couldn't get out. It took a few minutes of squirming to finally free myself. I didn't want to put my wife or parents through that (as those will ultimately be the people riding in the back) so the seat belt extenders made more sense. I tested the seat belt extenders and was able to buckle in and unbuckle with ease. I was surprised how difficult it was to use the seat belts without the extenders and I'm not a giant (5'9", 198 lbs, size 36-waist pants). A narrower car seat would help, but we like the models we have and purchased them before the LS.

 

Did you get an extender that worked from seatbeltextenderpros? I ordered one, but the hole was rectangular instead of arched at the top, and although it clicks in, it does not stay, it slides out.

 

I don't even remember what my issue was but I too had to use the seatbelt for the baby seat and not LATCH. I hate knowing this is not as safe, but works (think about how tight a properly LATCH'd child seat is, it cannot move one iota laterally, and actually puts serious indentations into the seat--my former coworker experimented trying to concoct something that would protect the seat, but gave up).