Car seat for grandparents car

[Samedaydifferentusername]

I have a 2.5 year old, currently weighs 13kgs. She happily ERFs in a TWE and KISS at home. We've been very happy with our choices.

We need to get a car seat for grandparents who live a flight away. Seat will also be used by niece similar age, slightly bigger child.

I think these are the requirements:

Last as long as possible in terms of weight
Isofix - I would be happier in terms of fitting by grandparents
Good safety
Reasonable price (around £150?)

Any ideas what we should get? I don't know much about forward facing. My niece doesn't rear face and she'll use it more and I'm trying to put my nervousness aside on having my daughter forward facing for the first time!

Thanks

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

The Joie Stages is an ERF seat for around that price - not sure how easy it is to swap direction...would that work?

[worldgonecrazy]

The Cybex seats have good safety test standards. They are slightly over your budget at around 190 but last up until the age of 11ish. You may get a cheaper one if you buy at the right time of year when the new colours come out and Kiddicare sell off the old colours at a cheaper price. We actually only paid 125 for ours. Really light and easy to swap between cars too.

[Samedaydifferentusername]

Thanks so much

Think - I was a bit put off by the which report on the joie although it does sound good and what a great price.

world - thank you, is there a specific one you would recommend? I'll have a look.

[worldgonecrazy]

We have this one but in black. There is also a new version of the seat out but I was unable to track down a supplier in the UK - I think it is in on the Mothercare website now.

[crashbangboom]

Can you stretch to another twe?

[crashbangboom]

Can you stretch to another twe?

[AliceMum09]

What about this one? www.kiddicare.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/productdisplay0_10751_-1_204478_10001

It's ISOFIX, and a decent seat - I assume that because the grandparents are abroad your DD is not going to be using the seat regularly, but if she has to do a few journeys FF a decent Britax seat is the best choice (as opposed to the Team Tex/Nania/Kiddicare own brand cheap seats).

As for lasting as long as possible in terms of weight, the maximum weight for a 5 point harness forward facing is 18kgs (apart from the TWE which is 25kgs), so it depends how big your niece is as to how much use she'd get from the seat.

You could look at a Group 1-2-3 seat, which has a harness that you remove at 18kgs to turn the seat into a high backed booster. But there don't seem to be many ISOFIX versions of these seats, and the only one I've had (the Britax Evolva) was very complicated and time consuming to remove and refit the harness. The first time I tried to refit the harness I did it wrong (and I am slightly obsessed with car seats and safety, my DD2 has an ERF seat and my 8 year old is on a high backed booster when most of his friends seem to have stopped using car seats altogether even though they still legally need them due to their height) so it's not a job I'd trust grandparents with!

[Ihateparties]

What about a hauck varioguard? Then each child can ff or rf depending on preference, a little over budget but not massively so,