Recaro Polaric

This is from a Dad's point of view so lets get started.

For £200 this is a very affordable way into rear facing seats which are 5 times safer than forward ones which is the reason we wanted one in the first place.

The seat is well made but heavy and large and you need a large car to fit it in. We have a Ford S-Max and it fits in easily and I'm sure it would fit in any large car such as a Mondeo and above however its best to check this by going to the shop as asking for their demo model to be fitted in your car to make sure.

Its pretty easy to fit and takes 5 to 10 minutes which is no hardship if you tend to leave the seat in your car but if you need to swap from car to car on a regular basis its not idea. This is because it has retaining straps which have to be fitted to the base of the front seat (its easy to do but a little fiddly).

The seat is easily adjustable and the strap height etc can be adjusted easily to. The cover can be washed and my daughter (16 mths) seemed perfectly comfortable in her new seat.

However for my wife and I there was one huge draw back and that was the noise!!! With our little one in the seat it rattled over most poor road surfaces as the seat is suspended within its outer frame. When the seat was empty the rattling was almost unbearable and you needed the music up full blast to drown out the noise. This would have driven us mad on short journeys let alone a long one so it had to go back. I'm sure that for some people rattles etc aren't an issue but for me (as with most blokes) a rattle in you car that you can't locate is seriously annoying so paying £200 to introduce a rattle into your car is madness.

Overall as the seat is rear facing it gets high marks regardless of the rattles. It's also a premium brand and the word 'Recaro' as a certain amount of kudos too. However we swapped our seat after a day for a BeSafe Izi Kid x3 isofix which was £100 more but worth the extra money as it's a 10/10 car seat (I'll review that one on this website too).

If you want an alternative to the rear facing Recaro but can't afford £309 then the belt fix version of the Besafe X3 is £250.

The only alternative to the rear facing seats we saw was the Kiddy Guardianfix Pro (Mamas and Papas do a version called the Cybex Pallas) which is forward facing but twice as safe as a normal forward facing seat as it doesn't use a traditional 3 point harness. Instead it has a large padded retaining block which is secured in place with a seat belt and means that in the event of an accident as the child is flung forward there is much less strain on their neck which lessens whiplash and in a higher speed accident the chance of spine and skull separation which leads to paralysis or even death.

As these seats last until 12 years old this will be the next type of seat we'll be getting when our daughter grows out of her rear facing seat.

I've had this seat now for a few months. We bought it as our son grew out the infant car seat by 7 months and was too young to be forward facing. I have also read the safety reviews etc regarding extended rear-facing seats and how they are 5 times safer in a forward facing crash. Once I had watched the You Tube videos of forward versus rearfacing crash tests, I could not purchase a forward facing seat.

The seat itself is very padded and luxurious. We got the Bellini grey cover and it is lovely and plush.

We have a Vauxhall Meriva and fits in the car no problem. The seat does sit quite far back, but this is to give room for little legs to dangle rather than be flush against the seat back, but this is unused space anyway.

It is very easy to install. The seat is isofix and also has tethers to the front passenger seat for added safety. The tethers take a wee while to fix and are not really meant to be removed, but there are seat belt style clips to detach the seat easily whilst leaving the tethers in place. It is a heavy seat, so not really meant for carting it about. It would be fine to move between cars or to be removed easily to have a car seat free back seat, but is more suited to being your main car seat and staying in place.

As it is isofix, there is no messing about with seat belts and once installed you only need to do up the 5 point harness and you're good to go.

My son looks very comforable in this seat. it is high up for side impact safety and also means that my son can see out of the side window and the back window, so he has loads to look at. i don't buy into the whole, rearfacing is boredom argument. My son can actually see more than a forward facing car and I have a Brightstarts mirror fitted so that he can see me and I also see him easily at a glance.

the recline option is pretty negligable, but my son fall s asleep comfortably at ever trip over 15 mins in length, so no issues there.

It may seem pricey, but an isofix forward facing seat would cost the same.

Rear facing from 9 months on an isofix with safety straps around the front seats sliding bar.
Quite a large seat due to needing leg room but fitted in our Kia Sedona easily and still left room for the front passenger.
Very comfortable for 13 month old and for a 3 year old we tried in the seat.
Seat has removable side head pads and seatbelt cushions.
Easy to adjust the seatbelt which is on a screw at the back so no rethreading as child grows.
Took a long time to install (about 10 mins)
Baby like sitting in it and sleeps more easily then she did in her 0-9 month seat.
Covers remove easily for washing and wash really well on a 30 wash

Fab rear-facing chair - had to give it a low mark for portability as it's quite a behemoth as I suspect most rear-facings would be.

Isofix fitting though, so incredibly easy to fit.

DD very happy in it - nice and high so she can see out of the window. I'm happy knowing she's got the extra safety of being rear-facing.