Comparing Convertible Car Seats

I am a Child Passenger Safety Technician

Do not buy any of the 3-in-1s under the name Safety First, Cosco, Alpha Omega, Enspira, Eddie Bauer, etc. They are exceptionally awful seats. They have serious installation issues, straps that tend to twist, ridiculously low top harness position, a 40 pound harness limit and they make the worst boosters on the market.

Avoid the Britax Diplomat and Roundabout. They have short shells and will not last you for very long. The Marathon and Boulevard are both great choices. They rear face to 35, forward face to 65.

The Evenflo Triumph Advance (NOT the original Triumph) is also a great seat. Rear faces to 35, forward faces to 50.

The Sunshine Kids Radian 65/80 are wonderful, narrow seats, esepcially great if you need to install car seats next to each other. You will have no trouble fitting one in an Altima.

Ignore the advice telling you that you can't fit a large Britax rear facing in a car. This is quite incorrect. They will fit rear facing in the smallest of compact cars.

My husband and I just bought the Britax Boulevard and are happy with it. It seems comfortable and easy to use. I realize it is quite and expense, but is rated up to 65lbs. whereas many others are only up to 40lbs, so it will last quite a bit longer. I work at Childrens Hospital and see the result of horrible car accidents and know that a good car seat is worth every penny. Hope this helps

ps- My son is 10mos old, 22lbs and > 30 inches tall.

About a month ago we switched our 11 mo old daughter from the Graco Snug Ride to the Britax Roundabout. We got the Britax brand specifically because of safety reasons. I almost fainted spending that much (we bought two at the same time - one for husband's car and one for mine) and yes, the Britax seats are incredibly expensive, but we feel safe with her in it and we love the seat too. She likes it much better than her infant seat as well. This particular model was recommended for people with smaller cars or less backseat room. We've got a Subaru Forester & it's great, but there's not a lot of room in the back for rear facing seats without cranking the front seats up to the dashboard & leaving no room for knees/passengers in front. If the quarters are close in your backseat at all and you're leaning towards any of the Britax seats, definitely go w/ the Roundabout for sure!!!!

HI,

We just went through this same issue. My daughter grew out of her infant seat at 7 months and we have a Honda civic, so getting a rear facing seat to fit was a little difficult. The safety technician who told you that all the Britax seats will fit in small cars is wrong. We went to Babies r us and tried to fit numerous seats in our car. The only way the Britax Marathon was going to fit rear facing was if the front seats were pulled all the way forward, making it impossible for either my husband or myself to drive. We ended up buying the Britax roundabout because it was one of the only ones that would fit and allow two people to sit in the front seats. It has great safety ratings and we love it. Hope this helps.

Hey J.,
We just went through this ordeal of finding "the perfect" convertable car seat for our 6 month old. After lots of research and shopping around, we purchased the Britax Diplomat car seat. It is such an awesome seat! It is smaller than the marathon, so it fits better in the car. We ended up buying it on line because it was a lot cheaper than buying it at Babie R Us. We had heard the Britax was an awesome seat and now that we have one, we can see why.
Good luck in your search! I hope this info helped.
Take care,
M.

Just my experience. My daughter grew very fast. She was in 12 month clothes when she was 5-6 months old. She grew out of her infant seat when she was just 4 months old. I swithed to a convertible carseat. I used the Safetyfirst, Alpha Omega. It is very pricey. I used it in a Honda Accord coupe. It worked fine. Even squeezed 2 other carseats in there. When I say Squeezed i mean squeezed. It was a 2 door car. LOL Not smart thinking. But she is almost 3 now and still rides in it. So it is definetly worth the money. If you live in the Norwich area I am willing to meet you and you can check it out.

J.-

I have a the Britax Boulevard and I love it!! It was a bit expensive, but I am a safety freak and it seems to be the safest. My daughter is 21 months old (I can't believe it!!) and she has been in the seat since she was about 8 months old. She is a peanut at only 21 pounds right now, so we had the seat facing backwards until recently. I drive a Honda Civic (and hope to always drive a car that small)... My sister also has the same car seat and both of them fit in the back seat (not much else does, but even in her Honda Accord, you could not fit a person between the car seats). Usually Nora is sitting in the middle seat, but when she was facing backwards and I have had to move her to the side, the front seats had to be pushed up fairly close to the front of the car, it is a good thing I am short :) Now that she is front facing, it does not matter where the front seats are placed.

Hope that helped.

E. Kerwin

Hi,
After grat debate we choose the Britax Roundabout for its saftey and for its size. I drive a Honda Pilot but I have found that rear facing many of the seats that you are looking at are huge and I could not fit them in my car (the y fit fine front facing). I will say though, that if it would have fit I would have bought the Britax Marathon b/c it last longer as a booster seat. My daughter is 20 months and is very large for her age (more than 100% in height) and we will need to buy another booster for her in no time at all. All tha tsaid I love everything else about the Britax car seats.
C.

We love our Roundabout, and will get a bigger Britax if needed (we have a big 10 month old). Our little guy seemed uncomfortable in his infant seat so we switched early and he loves sitting up taller and looking out the windows.

I have two Sunshine Radian seats and two Britax Boulevards. I drive an Acura MDX and I can put a Radian on each side and a Britax in the middle of the backseat.
They work very well- to get 3 kids across a standard backseat.
My mother drives an Altima. Both the Britax and the Radians work very well in her car. No installation problems- although I must say that the Britax seats are much easier to install tightly and correctly. I have difficulty with the Radians- and my husband has to do it to get it in tight enough. But once it's in- it's fine! She can also get 3 seats across her backseat- which is handy when we have a friend along.
I have lent my Radians out to several friends to try in their own cars. So far it has worked in a Silverado Pickup, a Honda CRV, a Nissan Pathfinder and a Jeep Comanche.
Good luck!
-S.

We have the Britax marathon and love it, although it may be tight in the rear facing position in your Altima. With my first child, we had a Honda Civic and moved her into the rear-facing Britax at about 9 months. We put it behind the passenger seat and it was fine because most of the time I was driving her around. When my husband and I were in the car, I would sit in the passenger seat, but I'm only 5'4", so it wasn't too bad. Also remember it's only for a few months. If your little one is 10 months, it will only be 2 months that he's rear facing. Can you deal for that long? We did.

Hello! I don't know much about the actual models you are considering, but I do have one piece of advice. Our son is now four and we use his seat as a booster now. The armrests do not come off on our model and it makes buckling a unbuckling the seat a little bit difficult. A lot of my friends have seats with detachable arms. Just something to think about for the future!

Jen D.

We bought the Evenflo Triumph and the Triumph Advance for our cars when my son was six months old (already 24lbs haha) He is ten months old now and still LOVES the seat. It is much more comfortbale for him than his Graco infant seat was, and it is super easy for us too! The adjustments are the best, quick in and out no matter what they are wearing. My husband has the regular triumph and I actually like his better than my advance....just tiny detail in the buckles but either way they are both awesome seats for the price (I think we paid 120 or so at Walmart) Esp since we couldn't afford two Brittax seats

Hi J.
I bought a Britax Marathon when my daughter got too heavy for me to carry around in the infant seat anymore. I love it. I love the print on it. It's pink with big bright pink and yellow and orange flowers! I have a jeep commander. I have to admit the car seat only fits rear facing with the passenger side seat pushed all the way to the front. When my husband goes somewhere with us in my car, I usually just sit in the back with the baby. When the time comes that I can turn it front facing it will be even better. It's a very comfortable seat and my daughter is very comfy in it. Hope this helps.

Hi there,
I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you. We're beginning the process of choosing a Booster seat for our 3 year old and I've been reminded of how overwhelming the task of "choosing the right one" can be.
However, I would highly encourage you to talk to you pediatrician.

When our daughter turned one she was not yet 20lbs, but very tall. Our Dr. had very strong convictions and information, as to why she needed to not be rear facing despite not being technically heavy enough to turn around.

Now that she is older she technically is tall and heavy enough (high 90th percentile)to use just about any style of Booster seat, yet she's a bean pole, so I had questions and concerns. I called her Dr. and he again offered a ton of valuable information to help us narrow down "must" qualities.
It's worth a conversation.

Good luck.
Oh, and so far, I'm favoring the Sunshine Kids brand seats. As your child gets older a more compact seat is the way to go.

I have the radian and love it - actually bought a second one for our other car - it's compact enough that I can fit three car seats in the back of my dodge dakota quad cab truck. However, I didn't start using it until my daughter was two - not sure how well it would work for a younger child - not a lot of padding. It is definetly more of a booster than a baby seat -although it is marketed as a birth on up seat. Hope this helps!

HI there,

Quick response due to children climbing on me :), but we have both the Britax Marathon and Roundabout. We bought the Marathon for my 3 year old and bought the Roundabout a few months ago for my 6 month old who is topping 20 pounds right now (he was too long for the baby one at 3 months old, ack!). I loved that the Marathon went to 60 pounds, especially since I have tall, heavy kids (their heights and weights match but they are big, as evidenced by my "little" guy). We went with the Roundabout for the youngest since it got higher *infant* safety ratings. The downside is that it only goes to 40 pounds and since my 6 mos. old is halfway there, I'm not sure how far away that is, lol! I figure by the time he tops 40, my eldest will be 60 pounds :)

Hope it helps!
L.
p.s. my daughter, 3, has always thought her seat was very comfy. The Roundabout appears to be even cushier, despite it's small size.

I have access to consumer reports review of convertible car seats (only safety is considered). If you are interested, I can send it to you :)

p.p.s. here's a great deal on Britax right now: http://babycheapskate.blogspot.com/2008/05/20-off-britax-...

We LOVE our Radians. We have 3 kids and the Radians kept us from having to buy a new car when the 3rd came along: we can actually fit 2 forward-facing and one rear-facing in the back of our narrow little Subaru. They are so easy to install and wonderfully safe. The only less-than-ideal thing I'v found is that if your kid pukes in the seat they're a bit harder to clean than the average seat. But if you don't have a puker (or if you put ina seat liner) this shouldn't be a problem.

Oh, and when we bought ours I called the place first and told them I wanted 3 only if they could fit into my car. They shipped all three and I paid an extra $5 or something for the option of return shipping if they didn't fit. Never needed it.

Good luck with your desicion!

Hello There,
I have an almost four year old boy, so my memory of that time might be sketchy, but I will try to offer helpful advice. My son was a big boy...was 20 lbs at 5 months. We had the Graco car seat that fits in the stroller. We used it to it's full capacity, both height and weight, but by 6 months we had to upgrade. We wound up buying the Evenflo Triumph (actually, we bought two -one for each car). I drive a Nissan Maxima and the evenflo fits better than the Graco did. It is easy to use and seems quite sturdy. Also it is easy to clean. We haven't converted it into a booster yet, but will do so very soon. I don't anticipate any issues with it.

Hope this helps.Good luck.

I used the safeseat until my DS was 13 months old. Then I bought a fisherprice safevoyage delux (made by britax, but not sure if they are still making them) and a Boulevard. Love both! And both install well in a Camry and in a quad cab truck. They have Radians at USA BABY on the Berlin Tnpk if you want to see them in real life, but I have bought all of our seats online, its much cheaper! My plan is to put DS into a BRitax regent when our new baby grows out of the safe seat and put the new baby into Boulevard. I would avoid the roundabouts because they only last up to 40 lbs, and you really want to keep your child harnessed until they are around 6.

All carseats have to pass safety regulations, so there really aren't "safer" carseats than others. I have two eddie bauer convertable carseats. We never had an infant seat. One is from 5-80lbs, the other 5-100lbs. They go from rear facing, forward facing, to booster seat. When you are looking at seats, try to find one that the 5 point harness has a high weight and height limit. It is safer to keep them in the harness longer because seat belts can fail. Also, just something I learned with mine, it fits better without the base and is just more secure in the seat.

I just went through the same thing and I also drive an Altima.

I bought a Fisher Price Safe Voyage. It is made by Britax and on sale with Albeebaby.com for $129.99 with free shipping.

http://www.albeebaby.com/fiprsavodeco1.html

I have two kids--ages 4 and 21 months. For both, we bought the Alpha-Omega car seat (Target)and like it. Not as spendy as a Britax, but a good seat none-the-less. It is rated for up to 60 lbs (I think.)

We still use the 5 pt belt for the 4 year old--she fits fine and we just feel it is safer.