Is the britax kidfix HBB with extra strap really much safer?

[fakeflower]

I’m planning to put my 4.5 year old in a HBB soon. I already have the joie I traver on standby which I’m mostly happy with (except last time he used it he wriggled out of seatbelt, I’m hoping he’ll be better now). But have since seen this https://www.naturalbabyshower.co.uk/products/britax-romer-kidfix-pro-car-seat-dusty-rose-style?_pos=8&_fid=02c11b3c7&_ss=c which has an extra strap and neck padding. I can see it scores very slightly better on ADAC (1.7 vs 1.9). But really could it be much better? From pics the lap part of seatbelt looks like its held at a gap from body, which I thought would be bad.

anyone have this and compared it to a regular, decent HBB?

should I spend another £150?? Wouldn’t be totally wasted as I have a younger child.

No I wouldn’t spend £150 on a HBB with an ADAC score of good when I already own a HBB with an ADAC score of good. If it were that much better the ADAC score would reflect that and it doesn’t. A .2 difference wouldn’t be enough to convince me to spend £150 and send a giant hunk of plastic to landfill.

Also FWIW we had the Britax Advansafix, which is pretty much the same as the Kidfix, it just also has a harness option for younger kids and DS didn’t like it because his head lolled if he fell asleep. He’s now using a Joie Trillo that was outgrown by an older sibling instead. That also has a an ADAC score of Good, doesn’t quite do as well as the Britax but I can live with that if he’s comfier as both are safe seats.

There is not much evidence supporting those extra straps, and if they do introduce slack as you point out then that can be a potential safety issue. It's my understanding that they basically came in as a parental reassurance thing - Britax claim that seats with this strap perform 25% better on their internal testing compared to their own seats without it. But I can never tell whether that is some direct influence of the strap (is it diverting energy in some way? I don't have the technical knowledge to judge this) or whether they are basing those results on a child/dummy which is sitting slouched or otherwise out of position in a way that this extra strap is supposed to prevent.

Personally I wouldn't replace the i-Traver with this seat. The i-Traver is already a good HBB. One of the features I really like in the i-Traver is the ability to adjust the depth of the seat, so you can accommodate children's growing legs - this seems to me to be much more relevant to a good lap belt position by ensuring that they can comfortably keep their bum at the back of the seat.

If your child wriggles out of a seatbelt, I would purchase a seat with a 5 point harness or keep him in his current seat, rather than get one with an extra strap on it which might not solve the problem. (What are his weight and height stats?)

thanks both for the sanity check and saving me money potentially :)

He’s about 106cm, 17.6kg. He’ll be 4.5 years in august. He’s currently in an erf seat that goes up to 36kg, which I will give to his sister. He’s happy in that but two erf seats take up a lot of room and it’s hard for an extra person to get in middle seat.

I was thinking he might like to be in a big boy seat after sept when he starts school. But he doesn’t usually bother about what other people think (ie shameless) so that’s just a guess on my part.

Also I know traver fits my car, son can sleep in it, he finds it comfy. So buying a new one is a risk. Next question would be when he moves over, I’d happily do it at 4.5 years but he complains of strap on his neck and took his arm out of seatbelt. He’s quite slim

Ah OK so he has plenty of capacity left in his current seat.

Maybe keep him RF through this next winter and try him FF in the spring? I think it's uncomfortable to sit next to a HBB as well because the side wings overlap where an adult's shoulders would be. It seems a shame to have an ERF seat and then only use it up to the capacity of a normal 18kg seat!

How long ago did you try him in it when he was wriggling out? A lot of DC are also exhausted by the first half year of reception because the expectations are quite different to nursery.

If he's slim and tends to wear t-shirts you will probably find the belt rubs his neck in any HBB. For my 6yo we just moved him from the Advansafix (in seatbelt mode) to the Joie i-Trillo and I had to buy one of those fluffy seatbelt covers to put next to his neck as it was actually making red marks, even though the headrest was adjusted correctly. You can use any of these aftermarket covers as long as they don't affect the movement of the seatbelt. The XP-Pad in the Britax Kidfix doesn't have anything on it to shield the child's neck from the edge of the seatbelt.

Such helpful info, thank you. Interestingly he’s the right weight for the r44 joie steadi we have but definitely too tall and zilch leg room m. So that’s been out of use for him for a while. Hence buying the larger erf one. A good point also that after starting reception he might regress a bit and be more impatient with my instructions to stay in his seatbelt. I’ll aim to switch him over in the new year.

we have a fluffy kids seatbelt cover, which helped him a lot. He was just turned 4 when when had him in HBB and he was complaining. I’d also just learnt to drive so I couldn’t confidently look back and check he was in place correctly. We only tried it for a handful of drives.

I would also agree with @BertieBottswith regards to the space. We’ve not long moved from a 36kg ERF seat into a (narrow) HBB and we can no longer fit two adults in back as well.

Ah yeah I have heard that the Steadi is a bit cramped in that respect.

Sounds like a plan, anyway.