Halfords brand car seats - are they ok?

[NannyR]

I've been asked to buy a couple of car seats for a church, for occasional use, very short journeys, basically for giving lifts to families who don't have their own transport. The car seats need to be easy to fit and compatible with different cars and I was thinking stage 1/2/3 seats would be useful for various ages of children.
As a nanny, personally I wouldn't buy cheaper own brand car seats for regular use in my own car, but, the church can't really afford to pay for Britax/Maxi cosi type seats and I was wondering - is a seat like this Halfords one actually ok for what we need it for?
Or, does anyone have any suggestions for decent, lower priced carseats?
Thank you

Hopeful bump for the morning people!

The seat you mention will have to have gone through the same testing as any other seat to be approved for sale, so I really don't see any problem here.

That one not really, it's very flimsy and poor quality. Yes it will have passed the legal requirements but it's not in the same league as Britax and Maxi Cosi.

The problem with cheaper 123 seats is that they are not only flimsy they are a pain to switch between booster and harness mode, and to adjust the height of the straps.

I would get a high backed booster for the older children age 4+ (Britax Adventure or Joie Trillo are great value) and then a separate harnessed seat for younger children.

You haven't included the rear facing age stage in the seat you're looking at, is that because families would tend to have their own infant carrier covering that stage? I know that a lot of people prefer to forward face, although rear facing is safer, particularly with very cheap seats.

Anyway I would look at Maxi Cosi Priori for the forward facing harness option. It's a cheaper one but it's easy to adjust to different heights. You can't be constantly threading the straps in and out to use it for different sized children but it would be unsafe not to adjust it to each child.

And if you want rear facing included in this stage as well, Joie Steadi or Graco Enhance are good options.

A Graco Enhance + Joie Trillo would come to about £130 for the two of them and would cover all ages.