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?

From Which report:

BeSafe Izi combi x2:
This group 0+/1 seat is designed to carry children from birth up to 18kg (about four years) - rearward-facing up to about 13kg (about a year) and then forward-facing. It is secured using the seat belt.

Head support is good, but it lacks leg support for larger children and longer journeys. Crash performance is good in a side crash, and in a head on collision front crash loads are acceptable.

The seat is heavy. You can adjust the seat height and the harness length and height without dismantling it, but it?s very complicated to install in the car and is liable to be installed incorrectly as a result. This is a serious problem, and as a result the seat falls below our safety threshold and is rated as a Which? Don?t Buy.

The finish quality of this seat is very good, and cleaning the cover is straightforward as it?s machine-washable.

Pros: Good finish quality

Cons: Difficult to install, cleaning the seat cover is complicated, big and heavy ? a particular problem in smaller cars.

Front crash 3/5
Side crash 4/5
Overall safety 3/5

Britax Multi-tech/Volvo (same seat):

We recommend you avoid the Which? Don?t Buy Britax Multi-Tech, a group 1/2 seat (also sold in the UK by Volvo dealers as the Volvo Convertible child seat). It is secured using the adult seat belts and aims to cater for children between 9 and 25kg (from about one to about seven years old).

It comes from Britax?s Nordic range, and although it isn?t listed on the Britax UK website, it is available at some specialist UK independent retailers. For group 1 it is installed rearward-facing, and for group 2 use it fits forward-facing. The seat takes up a lot of space in its rearward-facing position, which can cause problems in smaller cars.

Unfortunately, in trying to cater for different uses, it makes too many compromises. This results in poor protection, with the child exposed to fairly high loads in a front crash.

Despite having fairly clear instructions, it is also very complicated to install in the car, making the likelihood of getting it wrong unacceptably high. If you do manage to install it correctly, buckling the child in the seat is relatively straightforward.

The seat is nicely finished and offers good head support, but leg support could be better. The seat cover is handwash only.

Pros: Buckling up easy, good padding, good finish quality

Cons: High loads in a front crash, complicated installation, removing and cleaning the seat cover is complicated.
Front crash: 2/5
Side crash 3/5
Overall safety 3/5

Both 2/5 for fitting in car.

"with the child exposed to fairly high loads in a front crash."

Is that when the seat is rear-facing, or forwards-facing, or both? I wish they would tell us.

We have a seatbelt-fastening Izi Combi.

The Izi Combi they tested got 27%.

They say

Cons: Difficult to install, cleaning the seat cover is complicated, big and heavy ? a particular problem in smaller cars.

also

Head support is good, but it lacks leg support for larger children and longer journeys.

and

The seat is heavy. You can adjust the seat height and the harness length and height without dismantling it, but it?s very complicated to install in the car and is liable to be installed incorrectly as a result. This is a serious problem, and as a result the seat falls below our safety threshold and is rated as a Which? Don?t Buy.

Oh, and that German test linked to below for the BeSafe gives an overall rating of "satisfactory" for the seat, and highlights some of the same concerns as the Which report, ie hard to fit, heavy, not that comfortable for larger kids, front protection average. I think the manufacturer's interpretation is a little "selective".

Quote from Which? re Britax Multi-tech:-

For group 1 it is installed rearward-facing, and for group 2 use it fits forward-facing.

They obviously haven't read the instructions as it is rear facing from 9-25kg (i.e. Group 1 to Group 2) and forward facing 9-18kg (i.e. Group 1 only) so you can't even use it forward facing for Group 2. How they test car seats with out even using the seat properly I don't know!

The reviews now have no credibility if a Nania Dreamfix SP high back booster gets 3 stars for both side and front impacts but the BeSafe iZi Combi X2 gets 3 stars for front and 4 stars for side and yet gets a don't buy

There is no differenciation between rear and forward facing test results. If the seat performs badly as a forward facing seat but great as a rear facing seat I would still buy it I just wouldn't use it ffacing. Obviously the other way around and I wouldn't consider buying the seat at all.

I was also thinking of buying the Sunshine Kids Monterey high backbooster for DD1 when she is out of her spare harnessed seat. It has been made a 'don't buy' as apparently the instructions recommend to take the back off from 15kg I think a lot of high back boosters can be converted to a backless booster @@@ but surely the company would be wasting a shit load of money if they recommended discarding half of their product as soon as you use it.

Page 7 of the instruction manual states 'this booster seat is designed to offer advance side-impact protection with it's backrest section attached. However, the seat bottom can be used alone as a backless booster.' It also gives a warning that if the shoulder portion of the belt does not fit properly you must use the backrest. The only reason they give for not using the back rest is if the child is too tall to fit the seat with the backrest (which could be possible with a very skinny and tall child 161cm and 15kg don't think so).

I know it's main selling point in the States is the height of the belt routing allows quite a tall child to use the back before having to use it as a no back.

Anyway, I digress, I have had my membership cancelled.

You can use the Multi-tech forward facing as a group 2 seat - with the 3 point car seat belt, to 25kg.

As someone else said, Which never score multi stage seats highly...

I feel like cancelling my membership too. I think these reviews are so poor - not because the result is bad for my seat but because there's just no detail or explanation and because of the lack of differentiation between RF and FF use when the RF option for older toddlers is their main feature.

I wish they would give us more information - someone might easily change a small toddler straight back to a FF-only seat based on some of these reviews - but would that toddler actually be safer? Or would they have been safer RF until they got to the point when the parents needed to turn the seat round, at which point they'd be best switching to a best buy FF seat instead of a multiway one? If so, that's what Which should be saying. Or, if they are claiming that such a seat even used RF is still more dangerous in a front crash than the FF ones, then they should be clear about that, too.

It all seems to come down to ease of installation

Which appears to consider that the majority of UK parents can't install a basic seat properly so anything slightly complicated will go wrong

But don't stats say that about 80% of car seats are fitted incorrectly, ie the majority? The rear facing ones are more complex to fit, thus greater margin for error, esp if you have to buy them online cos they aren't widely available in the UK.

The thing is that if you are really interested in car safety enough to buy a ext. rear facer you would surely do everything you can to fit the seat exactly as the instructions say. Even if you aren't interested at all in car safety you should be able to follow instructions, if you can't it doesn't make the seat dangerous it makes you dangerous.

I do get Which?'s point about car seats being incorrectly installed BUT that shouldn't negate the results of the crash test with the seat being correctly installed.

Also, if you have access to the internet to purchase a rear facing seat you have access to a wealth of information about the seat and which cars it fits in and tips on installing it. You could access one of the rear facing forums/call up a shop that sells them/etc. I have even called Norway Britax and spoken to someone about the seat I was considering (a large proportion of Norwegian speak English - I don't speak Norwegian).

As Which? doesn't like seats which are either multi use or multi group it would help if they evaluated the seat on all aspects of it's use (i.e. 9-18kg r/fing, 15-25kg r/facing, 9-18kg f/facing, 15-25kg booster) as they do with baby carriers that can be installed with a belt/belted base/isofix base. Therefore you could decide if you wanted to still buy the seat even if it was a rubbish booster etc and buy a dedicated booster at the time you needed it.

I was thinking of getting the Brio Zento as our second/grandparents seat after having it test fitted in our car by road safety officers and having it recommended to us by them. Which? however have said that it is unsafe - so who do i believe?

I wish we could find out exactly how they have tested these seats.

It's not necessarily always going to be the purchaser who installs the car seats though is it? While interested parents who've done lots of research will know how to fit them safely, it's also grandparents/friends etc who might be fitting them. Our car seats move from car to car depending on childcare arrangements and so I'm not always there to fit the seats in.

If a seat is difficult to fit, then I think that is a valid reason for seats to be judged unsafe.

I would treat with a lot of cynicism any "safety" report that is not transparent regarding how their final scores were acheived. I can understand why they want to include factors for useability (ease of fit, ease of cleaning, etc), but I'd like to see how those factors have affected the overal rating. I'd like them to treat me as and intelligent adult that can decide how important it is to me that the covers come off easily. I'd also like to know what specific safety tests they ran - did they look at abdominal injuries, strain on the neck, etc. I'd also agree that they should test the seat in each manufacturer approved configuration (FF/RF) and provide the results seperately.

DD is 2 1/2 and in a BeSafe IziKid. We're happy with our choice - and feel that the advice of Road Safety Officers and the opinion of ANEC (who perform most of the safety tests for European approval and independent reviews) and the BMJ stating that RF is safer than FF for as long as possible is more reliable than the mixed reviews provided by Which?

LLW - Point taken. I was just thinking about my own set up where DH has our car seats installed permanantly in his car and we have spare seats for all the DCs at home. These were chosen for ease of use/install rather than being the safest seat we could afford (obviously we wouldn't have bought an unsafe seat or one that wasn't suitable for each child). I should have thought that not everyone would have spares.

To be honest I would trust the laws of physics over Which?'s recommendations

X-posted with LLW.

I take your point, and I think how easy a car seat is to fit is very useful information, but for me it would be more sensible to make that a seperatly weighted factor. The seat being difficult to fit doesn't make it dangerous per se - it increases the risks of using it in certain situations (like yours, where it needs to be fitted by different people in different cars). But it doesn't increase the risk of using it for me where it sits in my car and gets moved once or twice a year. It may stop the seat being a "best buy", but I don't see how it makes it "unsafe".

It worries me that Which? are effectively writing off all RF Grp 1 seats as "unsafe" seemingly because of useability concerns rather than because they are performing badly in crash tests. Given their conclusions are in conflict with some other very well respected organisations I hope they have taken the trouble to explain this difference to their readers.

Haven't seen the test but since work with car seats I can advice you to take all testing with a grain of salt. Testing is always subjective and some testers are famous for hating rear facing seats.

Sweden has been rear facing kids since 1965, I personally sat rear facing in 1967 ( I know I'm old;-). A very high percentage of Swedes install seats by themselves. INSTALLING A SWEDISH REAR FACING EAT IS NOT DIFFICULT. I think parents are capable of tightening seat belt and the two tether straps.

Sweden has almost zero deaths, only 2 in 2007 and 2008 in age 0-6 years, which mean installing the seats is not difficult. I know this by experience since I interact with parents all over the world who use the Swedish rear facing seats.

For those interested, Sweden has just launched a new safety standard "Plus Test" which is a voluntary test for manufacturers. This test is by far the strictest in the world and makes it impossible for forward facing seats to pass since test measure forces in the neck as well.

Adventuredad - do you know if any results have been released yet? I'd be really interested in how my seats do (TWE & NSecura). To be honest installing the TWE isn't as difficult as installing my First Class ffacing in my in-laws car so I don't get Which?'s complaints that it's difficult

The tether straps ARE hard to tighten, but really I think I can deal with that if it prevents paraplegia in my kids.

Disappointed in them. They just lost a subscriber.

for anyone interested in this there is a thread on the rf website. www.rearfacing.co.uk

Saying Multi Tech needs "lots of space" is flat out wrong. Multi Tech needs less space than Izikid Isofix and only 5 cm more space compared to the most compact car seat on the market (Britax Hi-Way). It doesn?t fit well in a Nissan Micra but that's a tiny car. It fits well in mid size cars and even in some small cars such as VW Polo.

Izikid X2 needs 15 cm more space compared to Multi TEch when used rear facing. It's a beast and not a recommended seat despite being safe. It's a RF seat sold in very low numbers.

Izi X2 is not any safer than Multi Tech or other seats which is very clear among professionals in the car seat market.

Multi Tech is not a great seat forward facing sued as a high back booster since it's heavy which adds extra load on a child. Almost all parents buy Multi TEch for long rear facing use, forward facing use comes way down the line.

Us who work with car seats professionally know that Maxi Cosi Mobi, Izikid Isofix, Britax Hi-Way, Bitax Multi TEch, Britax Two-WAy, and DuoLogic all offer the same great safety.

"Which!" are completely missing the point. It's long rear facing time which is the main feature, type of seat matter less. Swedes have been using a wide variety of Swedish rear facing seats since 1965 and our experiences clearly show that it's almost impossible for a child to become seriously injured in a correctly installed Swedish rear facing seat.

Questions? [email protected]

Have a great weekend!

Got the Volvo 9-25kg (rebranded Britax multi tech) which I plan to use when he outgrows his 13kg infant carrier. He seemed quite happy in it. My thinking is if these seats gets approved by the various standards, they have got to be doing something right.

does anyone know if they have tested the two way elite?

The TWE was tested in 2002, and the result is like reading the Multi-Tech results. Same text all over and over again.

The Multi-tech was tested forwrd facing with a

Q1, Q3 & Q6 in the frontal collision test.

Side impact forward facing:

Q3 & Q6

Rearfacing rontal impact:

Q6

Side impact:

Q3 & Q6

Note that in rearfacing mode the front seat in the car had been removed. the seatbelt installation was slightly incorect too.

I think we all know that parents who want their child to be forwardfacing from 9 kg. probably would choose the Evolva over the Multi-Tech as the Evolva is about £ 100 less than Multi-tech

Secondly, parents would never buy a specific seat if it meant they had to get rid of the front passenger seat.

Also the instructions for the Multi-tech specifically say NOT to leave more than 1 cm gap between dash board/frontseat and the Multi-Tech

The Multi-tech needs somewhat less room than the Besafe seats.

AAND just look at the stats from Sweden. They say a lot about how "useless" and "difficult & Dangerous" these seats are LOOOLLLL