coming from 1st year; car seat question

Hi,
I thought this would be the best palce to come with a car seat question. Last week, i was all ready to purchase a britax convertable car seat. i was looking at the marathon and decathalon., yeterday i went to babies r us and i was going to try them out. Another mom was there telling me they failed in a test that was just done and that i should get the Alpha Omega Elite.

My question is, if you have a Britax that i mentioned above, do you like it AND if you have an Alpha Omega Elite, do you like that one. Also are there any cons to any of those.

If there is another car seat you love, i would love to know about it.

Thank you so much.

 

Hi,
I thought this would be the best palce to come with a car seat question. Last week, i was all ready to purchase a britax convertable car seat. i was looking at the marathon and decathalon., yeterday i went to babies r us and i was going to try them out. Another mom was there telling me they failed in a test that was just done and that i should get the Alpha Omega Elite.

My question is, if you have a Britax that i mentioned above, do you like it AND if you have an Alpha Omega Elite, do you like that one. Also are there any cons to any of those.

If there is another car seat you love, i would love to know about it.

Thank you so much.

 

I think I have the Marathon and they are great. I like them very well! We've never been in an accident with them, so I can't attest to that (thank goodness)!

 

I have the Britax Decatholons and I love them. I did not know they failed a test though so I'm going to check into that. Thanks for the info.

 

last night i tried to google info about britax failing a test but could not find anything. maybe the mom was right but maybe not. She had mentioned something about the latch failing at 35 miles per hour??? It truly was a random person who came up to me as we were testing it. However, BRU has the Alphas as a "top pick" car seat.

 

It has been a few years since I have been looking at carseats, but when I was looking the Alpha Omega didn't come close to the Britax in terms of safety, ease of use, or comfort. The Alpha Omega is (was) also one of the shortest seats, so many children outgrew them by height before they outgrew them by weight.

I say go with the Britax.

The only thing I can think of that she might have been refering to is the fact that the seats that can be used with a 5-point harness for children over 40 lbs. MUST be secured with the seatbelt instead of LATCH once the child is over 40 lbs.

However, I haven't been following carseat stuff lately!

 

I think the woman misunderstood some information. I have two Marathons and love them! The bigggest issue on the cheaper seats is the thin straps that twist all over and make it a PITA to strap the kiddos in

 

I saw that show, and it wasn't the decathalons or the marathons that scored badly, but it was another type of Britax. I have 2 marathons, and we love them!

 

Loyal Briatx user here as well.
We have 2 Wizards.

 

I have the Britax Decathalons and love them. I beleive the seats the woman was talking about was the Britax infant car seat that recently failed a crash test by Consumer Reports.

 

The woman was refering to the Britax infant seat, not the convertibles. There are lots of recent threads about Consumer Reports' testing of infant seats with bases. The Britax infant seat failed their test.

As for convertible seats, I recall that the Britax (don't recall which model) and the Evenflo Triumph were the most highly rated convertible seats. We went with the Triumph because they are more affordable. We've really love the seats. But I've heard that the Britax are the best convertible seats if you can afford them.

 

thank you so much! I am back to getting a Britax! Thanks for claring that up.

 

I saw the report in our local news. It was something about the government standard for testing "crashability" of car seats is 30 MPH. Well, Consumer Reports decided to take it up a notch and tried it at 35 MPH. Apparently, some car seats did not fair well and I remember some seats they actually recommended that they would be safer seat belted in than using the latches. Maybe you could google the article.

 

^^I believe that consumer report was only on infant carseats though. I don't think the new one on convertible seats has come out yet.

Only 2 out of 12 or so infant seats were recommended.

 

I have the Marathon and LOVE it. Consumer reports did say that rf it need to be teethered for it to be the safest. But other then that small issue, it is a wonderful seat.

 

Like the previous post said, the lady was probably referring to last year's test where they didn't tether the Marathon when it was rear-facing in it's back came up off the seat a little bit. So, you should use the tether like is recommended. Other than that, Britax are the safest seats on the market and are tested far beyond American standards (there may be some issues with the new infant carseat though).