Car seats in USA

[yipeeitstheholidays]

We are possibly relocating to the US and wondered if anyone new of a website that I could check whether the two way elite is legal in america? I have tried google but no luck so far...

[yipeeitstheholidays]

We are moving to New Jersey

[thisisyesterday]

hmm truthsweet will know the answer to this, I am sure.

[TruthSweet]

No, not legal though I very much doubt you would get a fine or anything if stopped by a police officer. It would be tricky though if you were in a crash as your insurance could refuse to pay out (or the other party's) as you would be using a non-US compliant car seat.

Is there a reason you want to import/export a TWE? Is your child over 20kg/45lbs? If they are under that then a Diono Radian would be a suitable replacement as it rfs to 20kg/45lbs then ff harnessed to 36kg/80lbs and then you can use it as a high back booster to 120lbs/54kg. Most children will be well under the 25kg rfing weight of a TWE by the time they out grow the harness by height - DD1 is 122cm, 20kg and 6y and is too tall to use the TWE, DD2 is 112cm, 18kg and 4y 9m still fits ffing (she could ride rfing but her legs are long).

HTH

[thisisyesterday]

and the radian is LOVELY!

[yipeeitstheholidays]

Thanks, we have a TWE already and wanted to know whether we could use it in the US to avoid buying another car seat. Will have a look at the radian. Where can I find info on car seats for the US and what car they are suitable for? DS is 3y1m, 19kg and 104cm are there any other harnessed ff seats available?

[yipeeitstheholidays]

Are there any car seats that are legal both in the UK and US?

[SrirachaGirl]

Not sure how helpful this will be to you but pretty much everyone I know here in Canada gets car seats from Babies R Us ( I think you have this in the UK too and I know they are everywhere in the US). There is some good info linked from their American site here.

Good Luck with your move .

[TruthSweet]

There are LOTS of extended harnessing seat available (lucky you!) as most seats (except for the cheapy Wall-Mart type like a Scenera which is good but only rf/ff to 40lbs/18kg) ff to 65 or 80lbs (29kg/36kg). Britax do seats in the US like the Frontier that have a higher harnessing weight so worth looking at them. Stay well away from any like an Alpha Omega convertible or any seat marketed as 'the only seat you'll ever need' as they tend to not be the only seat you ever need (seats in the US have expiry dates and those seats also have low harness slots).

This is a really, really useful tool when trying to decide what car seat to buy, I just wish we had something like this in the UK. If you sit your DS up against a wall and measure from his bottom to the top of his shoulder that will give you his seated torso height which you need to know to find out if your child will fit/have growing room in a particular seat. As US seats have an 'At or above' rule for ffing harnessed seats so if your DS has a seated torso height of 17" there's no point looking at seats that have top slots for the harness that are 17" or smaller. You'd probably be looking at Convertible (if you wanted the option to rear face as well) or Combination/Youth seats (if you wanted ffing only or ffing & high back booster seats).

[yipeeitstheholidays]

Thanks for the info, thats really useful. Will look into it. We may even get chance to go and look at a few while we are visiting :)

[yipee4weekstogo]

We are actually going! I was wondering if anyone new anything about the following seats and how they fit in a ford escape:
Britax Frontier 85 or 85 SICT
Kiddy USA world plus
Recaro Young Sport

TIA

[TruthSweet]

How exciting

I know you aren't supposed to link to other forums but as you are asking such a specialist question (in the UK at least) you would be hard pushed to find a better place to ask than here.

Good luck with your relocation

[yipee4weekstogo]

Thanks TruthSweet

[BertieBotts]

I don't think there's any rule about linking to other forums here :) It's only if people do it in order to make fun or something that MNHQ don't like it.