J. Van Kirk says:

I want to start this review off with an acknowledgement that this is the first time I have EVER in my life left a review for a product. I very much appreciate other people’s reviews, but I never seem to find the time to leave my own. However, I felt this was very important to go out of my way on this one. Particularly in that this is a newer product.

I really REALLY wanted to like this product. I love the idea of the air pockets and still think they have GOT to help in the event of an accident. But barring the very unfortunate and very unlikely case of an accident, the daily functionality of this seats…(excuse my language) SUCKS. Allow me to start with items ranking from high importance (might be deadly to child) to low importance (the convenience of using this seat).

1. The harness straps were VERY if not impossible to tighten evenly on our 10 mth old daughter. My other car seats (I have 2 kids, so between ours and visiting relatives, we’ve used tons of different kinds) are fixed mounted down under each of my child’s hips…meaning each harness strap has an equal length as you are tightening it (this is good). This seat has one connected strap that connects under the seat, which means that you tighten, find out that one side has more slack, adjusting a little down by the hip or under the child’s bottom, working that up through the shoulder, then tugging on the strap behind the seat to make sure it is tight. Hard to explain, but trust me on this….it is a terrible design, hard to use, and is not at all safe if your child is not evenly and firmly restrained. Which I’m telling you is very hard to do with this seat.

2. OK, so barring the above image of my as a crazy woman tugging, adjusting, etc. for more than 5 min every time I used the seat for the almost 90 days that I had this seat, here are the other annoying things wrong with it….The small slot on the lower front of the seat where you press to loosen the harness straps (to remove your child from the seat) is almost impossible to access when the seat is rear facing. I have noticed that this is a common problem with some other car seats too. But something to be aware of now that States are often saying kids should stay rear facing for as long as possible (possibly up to 2 yrs old).

3. BOTH the chest latch and the harness latch are (SERIOUSLY!) almost impossible to open. I consider myself to be a pretty fit, nible, and patient person. But I have my limits. The chest latch closes no problem, but is sticks when you try to slide it open. It is almost as if they used a softer plastic than they should have in manufacturing. Ultimately, you have to press down hard with one hand and then using a thumb to push HARD on the opposing side, and then tug on it some, to open it. The harness latch release button is just plain hard to open. Way way way beyond the whole “Oh, we’ve made this safe so children can’t open it” No one can open it without throwing your whole body into it. The result of the above issues is that I spained my thumb trying to get my child in and out of this seat, which them made the seat that much more difficult to use. Life is too short for this crap.

This story has a happy ending for me. I realized I was just under the 90 day return policy for this and switched this for a Graco at Babies R Us. I could not be happier. PS. I’ve decided to also take other probably more useful safety measure – such as not talking on my phone while in the car – as further means to keep my children safe.

Rating: 1 / 5