car seat safety questioned

[MissChief]

Today programme mentioned Which report into safety of child car seats. I think 10 were mentioned as only meeting min standards (crash at 30 mph), they tested in more severe circs and appallingly, found that several top sellers inc from Britax and Mamas and Papas disintegrated on impact at higher speeds. Does anyone have a link
on the complete top 10? Truly awful that such well-regarded brand names are only conforming to the safety miniumums..

Volvo's are a pain re ISOFIX. Only one of their models is recommended for the Britax models. For the others, where fitted, you have to use their own car seats. We complained to Volvo about this - PILs have a Volvo - and got no reply.

Our Ford C-Max doesn't have Isofix as standard either which annoyed me at the time as it is a replacement for my beloved Scenic which was written off in a high speed (70 mph+) crash on the motorway about 18 months ago.

One think that I have learned from our accident though is that it depends very much upon the type of accident you have (not that this can be predicted of course) as to what actually happens to the seat and passenger. Our accident was dramatic in that our car was both hit, span and rolled up and back down and embankment but we all survived and the children (3 and 16 months at the time) had no physical injuries.

The seats we had were the Britax Eclipse and the Trio and I replaced them like for like afterwards (although the Trio is now in dh's car as it does not fit in the C-Max) as I was impressed with the fact that the harnesses etc worked perfectly with the seats of the actual car. Picking up on Beatie's post, I agree that as long as the correct car seats are fitted properly to cars then they can still be very effective regardless of whether they are Isofix or not.

bagpuss, that's scary, glad you were all ok. I'm somewhat reassured as we have the same pair of car seats (Eclipse and Trio). Though I'm not always convinced that they are very well fitted in the car - I find the Trio in particular quite hard to fit securely.

Has anyone else had problems with the fitting of the Britax Rennaiscance (sp?) ? I was never happy with the fit of this seat in my car and then one day my brother and SIl looked after my dd and so put the seat in their car and they couldn't believe how badly it fitted in comparison to their Britax Eclipse. I have now borrowed their Eclipse and have a barely used, unwanted expensive Rennaisance sitting in my shed!

There seemed to be no way to tighten up the shoulder part of the seatbelt. I felt like this seat was gimmikey. It allows easy adjusment of shoulder straps and has a lever on the side (supposedly) to tighten up the tension of the seat belt. It never worked for me and now I kick myself for not sending it back immediately.

Does anyone have any information about the Graco seat that was criticised?

beatie, we have a Britax Renaissance, and find that the seat belt tensioner doesn't work too well..I'm not bothered too much about the shoulder part of the three-point strap, as on an inertia reel seat belt it will automatically tighten in the event of a crash, just like it would for an adult sitting in the seat. However, the tensioner has the habit of coming undone when you pull up on the tightener for the five point harness, which is annoying. When it is first fitted, it is rock solid, then you pull to tighten the chest strps, and, Ping! it all loosens, and you have to take the whole seat out to tighten it up again. I've got into the habit now of pulling the strap DOWN to tighten it, and it seems to work better. I hope this nmakes sense.

BTW, as dd is 3.5 and long, and nearly out of the seat we are tolerating it until she is big enough for the next stage, as it did have good results in the tests.