To think there’s nothing to buy from Halfords?

[Mogwalla]

Unless you’re into camping or cycling? I’ve got £300 in vouchers and there’s absolutely nothing I want from there. It really annoying as I’m really struggling financially at the moment too….

I can’t spend the vouchers on their tyres or MOT’s either!

Windscreen washer fluid
Driving gloves. String-backed as that gives you extra purchase
Battery operated mini hand fan
Traffic cones. Including little ones for a cycling test centre
Tungsten tipped screws. Even if you're never gonna use em.

Do you have to spend the £300 all at once?

If so, get some car cleaning products and screenwash, oil etc or a dash cam

Buy the new seats. You will never forgive yourself if you don't, have another accident and the seats don't protect your children as they are designed to do.

When you replace them, cut the straps and destroy the polystyrene so they can't be sold on/used by someone unaware of their history.

A lot left over from £300 for two car seats? I don't know how. Any with a decent safety rating will leave you very little left over of £300, if any.

If you get a good quality safe seat you won't have much change ....it's the force on the seatbelt and frame as the seat is held back not any impact damage.

Halfords do good torches, lanterns
road maps/books, the large ones,
all sorts of gadgets you didn’t know
you needed,
as Jam said, shop early for Christmas,
birthdays.
Is there a time limit on the voucher?
you could buy a bike?

or new car seats

You had a crash.

Therefore, to replace the seats is necessary.

However, I think we all know that you will not be spending the money on new car seats.

They really don't.

They all go through the minimum testing, which is abysmal in the modern age (IIRC they've not been updated in decades).

Legal doesn't mean safe.

Joie is a cheaper brand that does additional testing.

Actually the minimum testing to pass and be sold under the R44 standard is a front collision at 30mph and a rear collision at 20mph so really not all that rigourous tbh.

How much are car seats anyway, expensive doesn't always mean safer, it just means branding and colour of cover

I’d replace he children’s car seats. You don’t know that they’re not damaged. It’s not worth the risk.

It doesn't always mean safe, but the safest ones (Swedish plus tested) are more expensive. Think the cheapest ones are about £200

It sounds like OP hasn't been given enough insurance money then, I haven't bought car seats for years, and DS is from the times when they had one of those cheap booster seats from when they were about 3 or 4, the toddler and baby seats were probably about £50-£100 but that was many years ago.

Depends on your insurance. Some don't cover the full cost of seats. (They may do £100 for example).

That's why it's important if you have a high-end seat to make sure you get insurance that will replace them like for like.

@User16387640 also the price alone is not indicative of safety.

There are expensive seats that are not good and cheaper ones that have additional testing (Joie for example).

The infant carrier I'm about to buy is £180 but I did look at a £650 birth to 25kg seat (Avionaut Sky).

Only reason I ruled it out is by time baby has outgrown the carrier my some will have outgrown his 25kg seat so baby will go into that and will get a decent HBB for son.

If you haven't seen it then take a look at the Venicci Ultralite, all Venicci's newer seats are now made and supplied by Avionaut and the Ultralite is the Pixel (the most supportive infant carrier that exists, especially for smaller babies) with different fabrics and is around/sometimes under £150.

Sell them on a gift card buying site. They offered me £85 for a £100 gift card.

Mogwalla · Yesterday 17:24
Someone drove into the back of my car ( it wasn’t a bad crash) so despite the car seats being absolutely fine my insurance company gave me the voucher to get some new ones”

You can’t know that. Buy new car seats.

@poweredbyplants personally I prefer to pay £30 or so more at my local specialist retailer as they have been fab and helpful in the past