OMG have you just seen the latest reviews from Which on car seats!!!

[Lucky13]

Why has Which just given all the Rear Facing group 1 seats 'dont buys'!!!!!

There is no explanation other than parents might not install it correctly so it might fail!

There is no comparison to tests around Europe which rate them as the highest in safety scores or the fact that Road Safety Officers recommend them?? Have Which gone mad?

???

The only rear facing seat group 1 seat I can see in the Which don't buy table is the Britax Multi-tech (and the Volvo convertible, which is the same seat).

And it doesn't recommend that seat because of low score for front (and side) crashes, not just for difficult installation.

There are four rear facing seats on there - not just the Britax and they all have the same score!

The bizarre thing is that they have all been tested in other countries such as Germany and around Scandinavia and been given the highest ratings for crash tests, using stricter safety standards than we use here!

Here all the Road Safety officers recommend these seats and now Which? are saying don't use them - this is very odd indeed!

this is weird, having read all the info on rearfacing.co.uk I'd have expected the opposite. I will watch this thread for any more info as I was about to start looking at RF seats for my DD.

I am really upset - i just don't understand how having the best safety scores across Europe can be translated into that by Which?

If these seats were bad why would our Road Safety Officers recommend we use them!!!!

They have given my seat 27%

They don't describe how they score the tests - i think they must weight it according to the fact they thought it was difficult to install??

We have just bought the Britax Multi-Tech and now I feel a bit sick. Thought we were doing the right thing with getting rear-facing. The thing is though, they don't say whether they are testing the seats FF or RF, or combining the 2 scores. And it is marked down for installation difficulty and cleaning as well.

Does anyone have a link to another review of this seat?

which seats have they reviewed?

Given that Britax say the Multi-Tech can't be sold online (according to Paul Stride) it does sound like it's tricky to install

Just found this German review of the Multi-tech (the page is from Google Translate, hence the slightly odd syntax).
Feel even worse now

I thought the multi stage seats always got worse reviews

I'm not familiar with the seats - which are the ones you're talking about? Aren't they all ranked for front/side/overall safety etc?

Sounds odd but I would trust European safety reviews over Which. Especially as they are including things like how easy the covers are to clean.

These seats have been reviewed

Volvo - Convertible Child seat
Britax - Multi-Tech
BeSafe - iZi Combi X2 (non isofix)
Brio - Zento

All of these seats were recommended to us by Road Safety Officers as being the best!

We bought BeSafe - iZi Combi X2 isofix - so not sure if that scores better or not.

Have we all been mislead?

Thing is RF is safer....that is without a doubt. but the problem is that if the seat is poorly designed and/or poorly fitted then it would be safer in a "better" forward seat IYSWIM.

Specifically Which's critism of the Britax is as follows:
Too many compromises in trying to make it FF and RF (i.e. comparatively dangerous in FF position).
Complicated to install - "likelihood of getting it wrong unacceptably high". Crash results aren't great either.

To anyone with the BeSafe iZi Combi isofix i have reassured myself with this Test result and article

here

Actually the Britax is on the only Group 1 RF.

The others on Lucky's list are only rear facing at stage 1 - so nothing different in style to those which have been on the market for quite a few years.

Sorry the others are only Rear facing at stage 0.

No they aren't! You can use them up to 18kg or 4 years rear facing.

This isn't a discussion about age groups - merely that we have all been advised to buy these rear facing seats and Which? have said don't buy them.

I guess that what I am trying to say (correct me if I am wrong) is that you are looking at the part of teh market where there are no safe Rf (i.e Group 1 onwards - because there are plenty of safe Group 0 options).

The BeSafe - iZi Combi X2 (non isofix) is only RF until 13kg according to Which - which is approx 1 yr.

I'm afraid you are wrong the BeSafe Izi Combi is rear facing up to 18kg. Which? have posted the weight for RF incorrectly.

BRIO Zento is up to 25 kg rear-facing

Fair enough

We've got a Britax two way elite but they haven't reviewed that by the sounds of it.

So if they're giving a score based on combined RF and FF front crash loads then the child could still be safer while it's RF? Then you could get a safer FF one for later on if appropriate? Bit expensive but might still be a good option if it's the safest way you're looking for.

I really dislike the fact that Which give so little information and also that their reviews of products are all cut and pasted versions of other reviews these days - they've really gone downhill from the way the product reviews used to be.

I also wish they would address this rear-facing issue properly - criticise the European test standards if necessary, let us see the RF and FF scores not give us a dumbed down combination answer, and allow people to make their own judgements based on the details.

Because if these seats really are, against all the evidence so far, more dangerous, then I would want to know - that's the whole point, I want a safe seat! But these Which reviews are unconvincing because they just don't go into enough detail - just enough to be worrying but not enough to actually explain why they're rejecting them. Grrr!

does anyone have a copy of the report so we can read it?

thanks