Car seat questions

[Worrywart987]

Anyone know what the graco version of the steadi is?

looking for 2 hols car seats for a small 4 year old (14kg) and an average 2 year old. Must be rear facing and belt fit for our taxi transfer. Would like it to last at least a year to get 2 holidays out of it

Weirdly the iTrillo LX r129 which we now know is the same as the Eversure and highly rated on ADAC doesn't seem available to buy. I was trying to compare prices. Wonder if they're both being discontinued

They discontinue models all the time and rerelease them in slightly different configurations, probably because it's cheaper to produce, or because they want to emphasise that feature in another line or something like that. For example Joie have just released a new booster (i-Provo) which is lighter and more basic in features and they are marketing that one as a spare seat or for car sharing. So it could make sense to reduce the number of Trillo variants they offer for example so they can focus on the Trillo being more of a middle of the road seat with more features people expect from premium seats but still for a low price. Joie have the Signature fabrics which they use to "comfy-up" a seat to premiumise it for that market, whereas Graco don't use that kind of branding, they have different models instead. I expect this happens in all kinds of industries with all kinds of product TBF.

A lot of the car seat group admins are retailers, so it's not impossible that someone might have got the "sister seats" thing direct from an Allison (Joie/Graco/Nuna) rep. One of their reps used to have a brilliantly helpful youtube channel and I think I remember him using that term actually.

My guess is that the softlatch or isocatch isn't a point that people buy for. If someone wants isofix they would rather pay more for rigid isofix. If they don't mind if it has isofix then they'll go for a cheaper one without isocatch. I prefer isocatch for booster seats but I also couldn't find one with that, I could only find rigid or non isofix options when we were last buying a seat.

@BertieBotts you are probably right about streamlining the trillo range because there are so many its hard to keep up.
I'm just worried with the Graco Affix that it'll be tested now and get an awful score like another Graco older one I saw. Like you say it's probs unlikely now they all seem to do well. But the Eversure seems a sure bet since it's already tested. Even if it is the pre 2025 test. That's still very stringent isn't it.

Yes, it's fine. But remember, those old Graco boosters got awful scores because they could have the backs taken off to be backless boosters. TBF - I don't think they are much cop when used with the back either, the side impact protection was basically nonexistent. Ahead of their time 20 years ago when they first came out but it's right for them to retire now, we have much better designs.

Occasionally a modern booster from a good manufacturer does surprisingly badly on ADAC but it's fairly rare for that to happen.

Yeah that makes sense. Can't really compare car seats from back then can we. The Affix had a £9.50 coupon on Amazon plus my 15% baby wishlist discount. So would have been £45.50. But the coupon is gone now.

But I got a 10% Graco coupon for joining. So I've ordered the Eversure for £36 with free delivery! Feel like you can't go wrong for that with its high ADAC score. And for the sake of £36 if it doesn't feel good I can give it to my mum for her car and look again. Will at least tide us over for now. It will defo fit too as I've checked and it's smaller than our current Joie Stages.

Seems like the main differences are the Affix has isofix and the Eversure has the extra side panels but much the same otherwise. Amd I'm not too bothered about isofix.

If anyone else is looking for advice the 10%sign up code at Graco is a good tip.

Thank you for all your help @BertieBotts I really appreciate it. It's a minefield and your knowledge really helps.

Oh I MUCH prefer the fit of this booster to the Joie Stages. I don't have very good photos unfortunately, but here is a comparison of DS2 in both, 3 years apart. In the Stages he was too little really, because he was sat in my friend's campervan to drive around a car park and it wasn't worth changing the seat from how it was set up for my friend's DC. He wasn't in a booster in our car then. But I think the belt fit is better in a dedicated HBB even if the Stages had been properly adjusted.

Yes I can't seem to get the belt fit right at all! I only got it as a temporary measure until my 12month old is old enough to go in to it rear facing. It was like £57 on amazon with discount so a real bargain. So instead of buying a HBB for my big one I just used the stages as a HBB for now and am going to switch them now. At the time she had outgrown the one she was in and I didn't know which HBB to go for so deferred the dilemma til now and snapped up the Stages at that price ha. Now I'm sorted because the Stages will be RF for the little one and the dedicated HBB for the big one.