Seat for a 5 year old

[Dangermouse1849]

Need some advice please, 5 years, turning 6 in December. Outgrown the current seat so have been looking at the next stage. Few deals on at the moment so keen to get the next one at a good price. I've been told not to bother with a harnessed seat now and to move onto a high backed booster (because I was looking at the maxi cosi titan) and that something like the maxi cosi tanza would be better. Can anyone offer me some advice please?

Yes one without a harness would be safer, and I assume at almost six he’s likely almost at or above the 18kg limit already. Maxi Cosi HBB tend to look good so the Tanzanian would be better than the Titan

Tanzanian meant Tanza, obviously!

Actually Maxi Cosi high backed boosters for some reason don't seem to test as well as other brands in their price range, apart from the Rodi. However, Tanza is totally new and hasn't been through independent testing yet, so might be better than the others.

But if your little one has outgrown a Group 1 seat then they will likely be too big for the harness part in the Titan anyway, so it's correct there's not much point bothering with this. If you really did want to harness then you could look at seats which harness up to 25kg, like Joie Bold. You need top tether and isofix in your car to use these seats. Personally for a 5yo unless there are behavioural issues with using a seatbelt, I'd just go for a well rated HBB :)

The top ones I'd recommend at the moment are the Cybex Solution S-fix and Z-fix - the difference between these is that the Z-fix expands widthways as well as upwards, whereas the S-fix is just upwards.

The Cybex seats have reclining headrest feature which helps with falling asleep and tend to fit petite kids well, but also go up nice and high to last you until the child is able to use a normal seatbelt. If you fit with isofix you can also recline the whole seat a little bit.

Or the Britax Kidfix seats - there are various versions of these, the differences are:

With or without SICT (extra side impact protection)
With or without XP-pad - a foam pad which goes across the child's chest and absorbs some forces of a frontal impact.

Between version 2 / 3 - the 3 is a bit more up to date and has a longer seat so more support for older children with longer legs. If you choose the XP pad version, the 3 tends to be a bit better at letting the seatbelt retract whereas version 2 has a problem with belt retraction in some cars.

All current Kidfix seats feature a "Secure guard" fourth point of contact between the legs to ensure good seatbelt positioning over the hips and help spread impact forces. And nice open belt guides at the hip so very easy to get the right placement. No recline, but a V-shaped headrest to help support the head if the child falls asleep.

Besafe izi Flex Fix is another option which comes with crotch strap to position seatbelt and a neck cushion which absorbs forces as well as being supportive if the child sleeps. It's more expensive than the other two brands.

Medium priced seats I'd recommend are

Joie Trillo LX
Joie Traver
Cybex Solution B-fix

I'll have a look for deals and come back to you :)

Cybex Solution S-fix at the moment is probably the best deal as has dropped from about £140 to £99 at a lot of places.

Would also add Diono MXT to the list of cheaper ones which still perform well :)

Thanks, appreciate that!

Just wanted to say thanks for all the suggestions.

@BertieBotts , I think you're right, a HBB is definitely the way to go as the harness of anything else would be redundant and don't really need the features aimed at younger kids, Narrowed it down to these (Inc current prices)

I don't want to go with the Tanza just because it's cheapest, if i need to spend more for a better seat then i will. Always had Maxi-Cosi seats so no experience with the Cybex range

Does anyone know if there are "crash tests" for car seats available to read?

Maxi Cosi Tanza £89

Maxi Cosia RodiFix AirProtect £109.99

Maxi Cosi Kore i-Size £135.99

Cybex Solution S (£139.99 for the i-fix , and £106.95 for the Standard) - Not sure of the differences)

Yes there are crash tests on high backed boosters. You can read them in English through the Which? test results if you have a subscription (sometimes libraries have them to access digitally).

Otherwise you can view them on OAMTC or ADAC (I find OAMTC easiest) but these are in German so it depends if you can set your browser to translate. There's not a huge amount of text though and the crash test scores are numerical. Lower numbers are better, I find anything under 2 is brilliant for a HBB, 2-2.5 is good and lower than that not great.

The Tanza hasn't been tested yet.
Kore - 3.1 for frontal / 1.8 for side impact.
Rodifix Air Protect - 2.5 for frontal, 2.3 for side impact
Cybex Solution S-fix - 2.1 for frontal / 1.3 for side impact.

Personally just based on crash test results I'd probably go for the Cybex. The headrest also is nice and tall so you should get all the way to seatbelt readiness in it, and not need to swap to a backless booster. The Kore is a bit shorter apparently. But if you need to fit someone in the middle, the Cybex is quite wide so that could be an issue. The Maxi Cosi seats are really slim.

Due to the position of the lap belt guides you do have slightly more scope for misuse on the Cybex - you have to make sure both sides of the belt plus the diagonal bit go under the "horns". The Maxi Cosi seats don't have horns so DC can do it themselves without you needing to check, a lack of horns also means the buckle tends to be more accessible. So if you have an independent child then the Cybex might not be the best choice.

There's not really a difference between the S-fix and S i-fix, the difference is just that the i-fix seat has been approved to the new i-size regulation, and so it has green seatbelt guides instead of red. As I understand it they didn't need to change anything to get it to pass, so even though the i-size crash test is stricter than the older R44 crash test, the S-fix would have passed the newer crash test anyway.

Thanks that helps so much, and now I know what the green guides mean!

Yep :) It's just to reduce confusion - on the old regulations, it was red for forward facing belt guides, and blue for rear facing belt guides. Now it's green for all.

Hi guys. Sorry to hijack - just wondering if anyone knows what the main difference is between the Cybex x-fix and the s-fix?
We have an x-fix in my car for our soon-to-be 4 year old (and happy with it) but we really need to get another one for my wifes car and trying to decide which one to get & the Maxi Cosi Kore is also in the mix.

Thanks a mill for any guidance.

Hello, Cybex are a bit confusing with their hundreds of similarly named models.

The main difference between the X-fix and the S-fix is that the S-fix is a much newer seat design. The S-fix has longer body guards at the sides and better side impact protection, including pop out pieces which really make a difference (but can take up more space in the car) and it also has a sort of internal recline in the headrest which is supposed to keep their head within the support guides when they sleep a bit better. I think the headrest extends a little bit higher on the S-fix as well compared to X-fix.

I would not personally opt for the Maxi Cosi Kore as it didn't do as well in safety testing and the headrest doesn't extend as highly as some other seats so it won't last as long.