Which infant car seat

[oobster]

Folks,

My daughter is now a year old, and is just over the 20lb mark so it's time to replace the car seat - i'm looking for your recomendations.

The one we have now is a Graco - it clips into a base which stays in the car & it also clips into a Graco pram we have too.

Ideally looking for one that is easily interchangeable between cars - Mrs has a Pug 307 & I have a Mk2 Focus.

Another plus point for us is a seat we wont need to replace again for quite a while!

Cheers

[chunkymonkey71]

We did a wee bit of research into this one. We had originally bought a Recaro Young Sport (Because it was a Recaro and it was cool) but it didnt fit well into our car, had a lot of lateral movement in it. (our car is a C-Max).

Really good value seat thats mega safe and has some pretty good features is the Maxi Cosi Tobi. £180 from Mothercare or £135 from Amazon. They do loads of cool colours! The one we have is called "Frisbee."

[james_tigerwoods]

We did a LOT of research in to this and decided on an ISOFIX seat - the next decision was which one after that.

We discounted most others on either asthetic grounds or expense grounds - We specifically discounted the Recaro one because you have to buy a base and then the seat. We went with a Britax Duo ISOFIX (can be easily secured with a belt with no problem) which was ordered, delivered and installed with no problems - it interchanges between ISOFIX and non-ISOFIX cars with no problems too.

The cheapest place I found it (and subsequently ordered from) was here - http://www.roofrackshop.com/Car-Products/Child-Car...

We didn't find it cheaper anywhere else.

[cheeky_chops]

Just getting a new one for my 4 year old - sign up to which? online for a months free trial and go here (some unpleasant videos to shock you into getting the right one)

http://www.which.co.uk/reviews/child-car-seats

Edited by cheeky_chops on Tuesday 13th January 16:01

[anonymous-user]

chunkymonkey71 said:

We did a wee bit of research into this one. We had originally bought a Recaro Young Sport (Because it was a Recaro and it was cool) but it didnt fit well into our car, had a lot of lateral movement in it. (our car is a C-Max).

Really good value seat thats mega safe and has some pretty good features is the Maxi Cosi Tobi. £180 from Mothercare or £135 from Amazon. They do loads of cool colours! The one we have is called "Frisbee."

Funny you should say that about the Recaro, it fitted like a dog in my old car!! Safety comes over looks and a name in these sort of cases!!(although i liked it because of the large age it would cover too) We've got a Maxi Cosi(forget the model) but they have a clever design to tighten the seat belt.

[chunkymonkey71]

james_tigerwoods said:

We did a LOT of research in to this and decided on an ISOFIX seat - the next decision was which one after that.

We discounted most others on either asthetic grounds or expense grounds - We specifically discounted the Recaro one because you have to buy a base and then the seat. We went with a Britax Duo ISOFIX (can be easily secured with a belt with no problem) which was ordered, delivered and installed with no problems - it interchanges between ISOFIX and non-ISOFIX cars with no problems too.

The cheapest place I found it (and subsequently ordered from) was here - http://www.roofrackshop.com/Car-Products/Child-Car...

We didn't find it cheaper anywhere else.

My Recaro seat is an Isofix but the C-Max doesnt have the anchor points and in the manual "Ford does not recommend the use of Isofix".

[pat_y]

Dave_ST220 said:

chunkymonkey71 said:

We did a wee bit of research into this one. We had originally bought a Recaro Young Sport (Because it was a Recaro and it was cool) but it didnt fit well into our car, had a lot of lateral movement in it. (our car is a C-Max).

Really good value seat thats mega safe and has some pretty good features is the Maxi Cosi Tobi. £180 from Mothercare or £135 from Amazon. They do loads of cool colours! The one we have is called "Frisbee."

Funny you should say that about the Recaro, it fitted like a dog in my old car!! Safety comes over looks and a name in these sort of cases!!(although i liked it because of the large age it would cover too) We've got a Maxi Cosi(forget the model) but they have a clever design to tighten the seat belt.

Oh Arsebiscuits...I've got one of these on order for the Audi, Oh well shall just have to see if it fits any better to mine than it did to yours.

[james_tigerwoods]

chunkymonkey71 said:

james_tigerwoods said:

We did a LOT of research in to this and decided on an ISOFIX seat - the next decision was which one after that.

We discounted most others on either asthetic grounds or expense grounds - We specifically discounted the Recaro one because you have to buy a base and then the seat. We went with a Britax Duo ISOFIX (can be easily secured with a belt with no problem) which was ordered, delivered and installed with no problems - it interchanges between ISOFIX and non-ISOFIX cars with no problems too.

The cheapest place I found it (and subsequently ordered from) was here - http://www.roofrackshop.com/Car-Products/Child-Car...

We didn't find it cheaper anywhere else.

My Recaro seat is an Isofix but the C-Max doesnt have the anchor points and in the manual "Ford does not recommend the use of Isofix".

Ford said:

"Ford does not recommend the use of Isofix"

Why? On the Britax seat, the isofix points can and do tuck away to specifically allow for it to be used in a non-ISOFIX car. I find that an odd thing for Ford to say (**waits to be corrected**).

When we chose the ISOFIX seat, we did so in the knowledge that the seat will fit in my Passat and the OH's Jazz - the Grandparents' Audi (for some reason) doesn't have ISOFIX and the seat belts in happily.

And I find it odd that the CMax doesn't have anchor points too, especially as it's a family cars. But what do I know?

[anonymous-user]

pat_y said:

Dave_ST220 said:

chunkymonkey71 said:

We did a wee bit of research into this one. We had originally bought a Recaro Young Sport (Because it was a Recaro and it was cool) but it didnt fit well into our car, had a lot of lateral movement in it. (our car is a C-Max).

Really good value seat thats mega safe and has some pretty good features is the Maxi Cosi Tobi. £180 from Mothercare or £135 from Amazon. They do loads of cool colours! The one we have is called "Frisbee."

Funny you should say that about the Recaro, it fitted like a dog in my old car!! Safety comes over looks and a name in these sort of cases!!(although i liked it because of the large age it would cover too) We've got a Maxi Cosi(forget the model) but they have a clever design to tighten the seat belt.

Oh Arsebiscuits...I've got one of these on order for the Audi, Oh well shall just have to see if it fits any better to mine than it did to yours.

You maybe OK-it would have been fine in the 220 as the seat base is pretty flat, in the older car it just slid all over the place.

[mcflurry]

We have a maxi cosi - it came top, or close, in the Which survey
They are circa £200 in Mothercare, John Lewis and online
It is available in isofix or the other fitting

[gtidriver]

What you want is the Bebe Confort Axiss car seat it is brilliant. My lad fits perfectly it lifts up so he can sleep flatter and it rotates so you dont have to break your back putting your child in yes its expensive but its worth it.unless of course youve got a three door then get something that doesnt rotate as its a waste.Comes apart easly as well to clean...

[gmk666]

We just transferred our 9 month old into a Maxi Cosi. We only looked at ISOFIX as both my car and the wife's Clio have the fittings, so seemed silly not to.
Discounted Recaro because of the need for the base, as well as me nearly trapping her leg in the clip when trying it out in Halfords.

Talking of Halfords, they were useless. The 'expert' wasn't in on a Saturday, and the 12 year old who attempted to help me fit it didn't know what ISOFIX was.

(Edited to add that the new seat is great.)

Edited by gmk666 on Tuesday 13th January 16:44

[ND_007]

Our little boy is just about to move to the next stage car seat (10 months). We have been looking at the Priorifix by Maxi-cosi. Any advice from someone who has one? we both have Isofix in the cars.

[cheeky_chops]

ND_007 said:

Priorifix by Maxi-cosi. Any advice

In the which mag best buys with 75%, only beaten in that group by the Kiddy InfinityPro with 78% (much cheaper @ £130) even though its not isofix

hth

Edited by cheeky_chops on Tuesday 13th January 17:11

[Wozza]

ND_007 said:

We have been looking at the Priorifix by Maxi-cosi. Any advice from someone who has one? we both have Isofix in the cars.

We have a Priorifix and its a very good seat - fits very well in both of our cars and allows you to recline the seat, even when the child is already belted in.

The only critism I have of this seat is that there is quite a lot of space around the child's head. My son didn't move into this seat until he was 18 months and we bought a second car and it seemed ok then, not so sure about it had he been 10 months and still a lot smaller.

The first seat we had bought was a Recaro Young Expert. This has a removable cushion layer which fitted nice and snug around my son's head when we first moved him into it at 10 months.

This again is a really nice seat but it is very heavy and you really don't want to putting it in and out of the car too often. I did fit it into a lot of different cars when I was lookign to buy a new car and it always fit very snug (using isofix). Only other critism is that once a child is in the seat, you cannot recline it.

HTH? Marc

[gibbo37]

I've not posted before but have been lurking in the background for a while but seeing this topic I thought I'd register as I've spent a long time making sure we got the right seat for our daughter.

After searching for ages for a really good car seat and doing lot's of research we bought the Maxi-Cosi Priorifix. It's a great seat that's really well made, have a look at one and compare it to other seats and you'll see what I mean.
It's really easy to fit in my car and is easily installed in wife's car too.

Whilst the seat is fairly expensive I wouldn't want to compromise on safety as whilst I understand that all new seats have to conform to a certain standard, some seats perform a lot better in crash tests than others.

We very nearly bought the Bebeconfort Axiss which I believe is now branded Maxi-Cosi (same company though) but decided on the Priorifix as we wanted an Isofix solution, however if we didn't have Isofix in our cars then I would have bought that or the Maxi-Cosi Tobi.

I hope that helps

[alock]

james_tigerwoods said:

We did a LOT of research in to this and decided on an ISOFIX seat.

It still suprises me the people who don't use ISOFIX. The test you need to do is to use a non-ISOFIX seat, get in the rear of the car with the seat and go mental. Use all the force you are capable of either via violent shaking or leaverage with your legs whilst sitting across the rear bench. Try and rip the seat from its mountings. Any force you can apply will be a fraction of what a high speed crash will generate. If the seat moves during your testing then don't buy it.

[theturbs]

A vote here for the MaxiCosi Priori. The one we have is a forward-facing model and we are not using iso-fix (not sure it's even available for this model of seat).

IMO the iso-fix base is largely redundant when the child is large enough for a forward-facing seat - the child+seat combo weighs too much to lug it around!

The Priori has done well in various surveys, can be purchased for less than £150 and is easily transferable between cars.

HTH

[gmk666]

ND_007 said:

Any advice from someone who has one? We both have Isofix in the cars.

I should have mentioned ours is also the Priorifix, and I really recommend it. The recline function is useful, the chair feels solid and (vital for the dads) it looks cool.
It is a big chair, so it's worth checking there's room for growth once it's fitted into your car. Our daughter is tall for her age and there's not that much space left between her feet and the back of my wife's seat, but that might have to do with the rear space and the size of the Recaros in my RS4.

(I keep pointing this out to my wife too, usually followed by the words '...and that's why we'll need an RS6 very soon.')

[chunkymonkey71]

james_tigerwoods said:

chunkymonkey71 said:

james_tigerwoods said:

We did a LOT of research in to this and decided on an ISOFIX seat - the next decision was which one after that.

We discounted most others on either asthetic grounds or expense grounds - We specifically discounted the Recaro one because you have to buy a base and then the seat. We went with a Britax Duo ISOFIX (can be easily secured with a belt with no problem) which was ordered, delivered and installed with no problems - it interchanges between ISOFIX and non-ISOFIX cars with no problems too.

The cheapest place I found it (and subsequently ordered from) was here - http://www.roofrackshop.com/Car-Products/Child-Car...

We didn't find it cheaper anywhere else.

My Recaro seat is an Isofix but the C-Max doesnt have the anchor points and in the manual "Ford does not recommend the use of Isofix".

Ford said:

"Ford does not recommend the use of Isofix"

Why? On the Britax seat, the isofix points can and do tuck away to specifically allow for it to be used in a non-ISOFIX car. I find that an odd thing for Ford to say (**waits to be corrected**).

When we chose the ISOFIX seat, we did so in the knowledge that the seat will fit in my Passat and the OH's Jazz - the Grandparents' Audi (for some reason) doesn't have ISOFIX and the seat belts in happily.

And I find it odd that the CMax doesn't have anchor points too, especially as it's a family cars. But what do I know?

Had problems with high backed seats fitting too. We have a Ghia and the headrests on the rear seats are not removable. They push high back seats away from the seat back and make them unstable...

so much for a family car eh? Not safe for your family!