To think you get what you pay for with car seats?

[KenAdams]

Stemming from the recent Which article regarding the Nania Trio Plus and the Kiddicare Maxi SP.

It makes me a bit when people spend hundreds on first birthday presents and parties but only £25 on a car seat. Surely if you can afford a car you can afford a car seat?

I think yes and no. The legal minimum tests are pretty low - a 30mph frontal crash only and they do not measure the effects on the dummy itself, just that it keeps them restrained and the seat itself does not fail.

The very very cheapest seats will be produced cheaply, and this means meeting the minimum standards and no more. I would not buy one of these, given a choice. However of course it doesn't mean that a seat which costs 10 tines more has had loads more safety tests - the cost of doing extra safety tests, when spread out across sales of many seats doesn't add that amount extra. It's possible for a mid priced seat to be safer than a top of the range one, because most of the price difference is marketing and features such as the seat having a clip out base or swivelling for easy access.

IMO the Kiddy/cybex car seats are tge best for non drivers.

thats not true. The new standards inc rear impact crashes, side, overturning, also buckles are tested, head movements etc. The minimum standards are not low at all.

The European car seat groups are some of the worst among other countries which require use of car seats, in my opinion.

We have the highest legal age for using a car seat to (although barely anybody follows this, most people don't even seem to realise that it's until 12 or a certain height) - but conversely we have the lowest age for forward facing and it is very difficult to find information on "extended" rear facing. The regulations for young children's seats seem really low in general.

Which new standards are these? Is be interested to know if they have changed. I'm referring to the ECE which was introduced in 2004, I can't remember the number.

YABU, while sometimes cheap means shopping sometimes you pay for the brand and sometimes people don't even shop around for the same product so end up spending £Xs more in one store then another. I got a great seat second hand from a friend's friend for only £30, checked it all out and it was a great model-just cheaper then buying firsthand.

ECE R44.03 and ECE R44.04 June 2006.

See, $75 vs $350 (read pounds, US keyboard) isn't the issue in my book. A $75 seat is probably, safety wise, just as good as a more expensive one (ruling out RF or similar). It's the really budget, ultra bargain basement seats which are troubling. They weren't around when DS was little and we bought a Mothercare own brand infant seat for $40. It was great - sturdy, deep, disi the job well. I once turned it over to discover it was made by Dorel, the same company who make Maxi Cosi seats. It was essentially the Cabriofix with cheaper coverings and different fixings so it wasn't compatible with the million pushchairs Maxi Cosi is. I don't think you can get that same reassurance by buying a $25 seat made by nania who exclusively make extremely cheap seats. They must be cutting corners somewhere.

Sorry Koba, you are correct although they don't include side impacts in the test. Some sources quote these as the most likely type of crash.

www.childcarseats.org.uk/standards/r4403.htm

These are the European standards if anyone is interested.

Well said LtEveDallas & PoppyAmex.
The safest option is don't let them get in a car at all.
Heck don't have a kid, that's truly the safest way to keep them safe.
That's my volley, since the thread is really just a competition in Safety Awareness.

Anyone who insinuates that I love my child less because I didn't spunk hundreds on a carseat which has only ever been used about three times in her life needs his or her fucking head read.

The things people feel the need to lord it over others about.

There was an extremely interesting item on carseats in either Freakonomics or its sequel, Superfreakonomics. If you are genuinely interested in educating yourself on the subject (rather than just sneering at the poor or indeed anyone who has better places to allocate their funds), I recommend it.

Those standards are what I mentioned above - 30 mph frontal crash, 18 mph rear crash. I didn't know the rollover test was included, am amazed the impact shield passed that.

They are ridiculously low imo.

Also don't get the "most car seats are fitted incorrectly so there's no point buying a decent one" argument

"Anyone who insinuates that I love my child less because I didn't spunk hundreds on a carseat which has only ever been used about three times in her life needs his or her fucking head read.

The things people feel the need to lord it over others about.

If you are genuinely interested in educating yourself on the subject (rather than just sneering at the poor or indeed anyone who has better places to allocate their funds), I recommend it."

maltese I agree that reading is an excellent way to educate yourself - may I suggest you actually read this bloody thread before you post? Nothing in your message is relevant to the actual thread. Allow me to point you to Straw Man

40mph would be better. Problem with testing at high speeds is firstly the grim reality that the car is very likely to be severely damaged at these speeds and hence it is difficult to predict what will happen with a car seat, and secondly because these kinds of crashes are much rarer, it's more likely you will crash at 30/40 or below.

The ncap tests for actual cars only crash test at 40.

Poppy this is getting freaky now. Are you me under a different name?

I don't know how many times I've said I'm not having a go at the poor, nor am I saying you love your child any less, but keep reading it as that if you like.

We researched our car seats and saved up to be able to buy the best performing ones we could afford. Back then the gold standard for car seats was the Swedish T Standard (think this has been replaced now) and we chose ERF seats that met the T standard. We did without things so we could afford them but imo it was well worth it.

I think every parent should choose the best car seat solution for them, and I realise that this might be different for each family, but I do think every parent should be responsible enough to look into the options and make an informed choice, rather than just walking into Mothercare and picking the cheapest/best looking one.

I think that everyone should choose the best performing seat they can afford. If the best you can afford is a £25 from Asda one, then great, you've done the best you can.

What I don't understand is when I see friends who aren't short of money choosing a cheap seat, though they could afford a much better one.
So like some friends in particular who drive an Audi, plenty of foreign holidays, meals out, plenty of flash clothes and shoes, child dressed in Joules and Boden but sat in a cheap, poorer quality car seat. It makes no sense.

"Also don't get the "most car seats are fitted incorrectly so there's no point buying a decent one" argument hmm"

no, what I said was you'd be better off making sure whatever one you have fits properly, because it doesn't make much difference how much you have spent if its incorrectly fitted, it won't protect properly.
There's a real smugness here: "I spent 500£ on a car seat, I'm a wonderful parent". 8 out of 10 of you haven't put it in right though, so nice try, but fail.

Yes, getting good advice on how it should fit is crucial. We bought from a small independent retailer where the owner could show that he had been on a training course for the seat he sold and I spent about 30 minutes with him going through exactly how to fit the seat.

The spotty 17 year old in Halfords can't offer the same service and don't have a good enough training imo, judging from the last time I bought a car seat in there (the Maxi Cosi Cabriofix) and was given some shockingly bad advice that I hadn't asked for.

There are new safety standards coming in the EU, called i-size.

See here

From 9 July 2013 the first phase of i-Size will run alongside the existing regulation, ECE R44/04.
i-Size is more demanding than ECE R44/04 and should ultimately lead to child car seats that are easier to install and offer better protection in a crash.

Cars and car seats will be designed to fit together better, so that i-Size child car seats will automatically fit in new i-Size cars properly.

The key principles of the first phase of i-Size are:

i-Size seats keep the child rearward facing for longer - until the child is at least 15 months old. This offers greater protection for the child?s head, neck and vital organs.

i-Size is based on the child?s height, rather than their weight, which makes it easier for adults to know they are using the correct seat for the child they are carrying. This is because height is more directly linked to physical development.

i-Size seats will fit into ISOFix points, reducing the chance of fitting it wrong in the car. In the future, i-Size car seats will fit all ?i-Size ready? vehicles.

i-Size seats will be tested more rigourously before they go on sale. A new side impact crash, like the one already used in the Which? child car seat test, will lead to seats providing better protection of the child?s head, especially for younger children.

i-Size seats for young babies will also offer a significant improvement in protection for the head and neck.

Obviously you can only spend money that you have got. if you can't afford something then you can't afford it and you do the best you can with what you have. However if you can afford to buy a pricey icandy travel system for your baby then you get a £25 stage one carseat nine months later you could be accused of putting style over substance.

I have an ERF seat because the safety aspect was important to me. It cost £300 and is suitable from birth to age 4. If you add up the cost of Maxi cosi pebble, maxi cosi pearl and maxi cosi family fix base to put those seats onto then actually my ERF seat is cheaper as the base is included in the price and only one seat was necessary.

Why are 80% fitted incorrectly? That figure is so high it makes me wonder if mine is correct, though I have read/followed instructions carefully. How hard can it be?

Ken I'm afraid some answers to your thread have given me "the rage"; I'm usually a very calm person too, but these hormones are all over the place

Purple thanks for posting, that's very interesting and hopefully a step in the right direction.

I brought my sons one for £20 at an ASDA baby event, that was two years ago. And its still going strong, I think sometimes over priced doesn't always mean better.

Louise What do you mean 'its still going strong'? In what way are you judging it to be ok? You mean it hasn't broken yet in normal wear and tear? That doesn't mean it is a safe seat or that it will perform well under crash conditions.

I absolutely agree that you can't judge a car seat by it's price, they should be judged by their performance in rigorous safety tests.

Some of the arguments on here about having a small car/needing to swap seats between cars so no being able to use a erf seat are just wrong.

We have a 3-door Yaris, so a very small car, and spent £220 buying this Britax erf car seat. It lasts rf from 9-25kg (although you can swap it to ff if you wanted to, also to 25kg). DS is above average height and about 20kg, but at nearly 5 is still very comfortable in it and should be for a while yet.

We need to use it in the grandparents car once a month or so and so bought an extra set of tethers for their car (£20 or so) and it takes a max of 5 minutes to swap it between cars - part of that is me squeezing into the back of the car to lift it out, if I had a 5 door car it'd be a lot quicker.

There are always trade-offs to be made between risk and benefit - if you use a car once a year then sure, buy a cheaper/less safe ff seat. But the Which reports are £1 for a trial subscription or free to look at in libraries so its a good idea for any parent to educate themselves so they know exactly what trade-off they're making.

btw I do think Which are biased against rf seats - I heard somewhere that they test them ff when they're not designed to be, which is v odd, but Swedish tests are more stringent than ours, so I don't think you can go wrong buying a Swedish car seat.

Which don't test car seats in ways they are not meant to be installed, that would be silly. They test seats in every configuration though, so if a seat can go ff and rf then they test both ways. The lowest score wins because they assume that parents will use a seat in all configurations.

80% of people install car seats wrong because: many people don't look at instructions, diagrams aren't easy to understand for everyone, they install as shown by a sales assistant in a chain store who hasn't been trained well (some have, some haven't) they guess, they don't know about buckle crunch, they don't realise that the belt should be flat and untwisted, they don't realise you should pull the belt tight at every stage and in some seats push your bodyweight into the seat while fitting it. They are not the regular user of the car or seat, their child is screaming so they do it more quickly than usual, they have read the manual once but not in recent months and have forgotten the extra steps they used to do. Their child has grown and they did not realise they need to adjust the straps, they are strapping their child in wearing a thick coat. Loads of reasons, and I am guilty of some of these myself.