Before buying Fronter we used Britax Marathon for our daughter and we were very happy with it. So, after lots of research Frotier was our obvious choice. Our three year old daughter also likes her new spacious car seat with cup-holders on both sides. It also feels very sturdy, well-built and safe. However, my major complain is installation. We never had any installation problem with Marathon.
As others mentioned already, installation is bit difficult for this car seat. This a pretty big size car seat, which is good but works as disadvantage while installing. We never tried use LATCH on our Honda Accord, because car manual does not recommend using LATCH in backseat middle position (and we don't want to install it near window, as it makes child more vulnerable in side impact). Using seat belt, there is two ways to install this car seat - "short path" and "long path".
1. In "short path", if your buckle (where you tug/click the latch-plate of your seat belt to buckle-up) is at least three inch above from the base of seat, this car seat is NOT going to install properly. Because seat belt hole in car seat is too low and buckle get too close to make the seat belt tight enough. The whole car seat moves around. Very unsafe. Most of the Japanese cars and many American cars have buckles a few inch above from base of the seat. I know some cars like Lexas have buckles located almost at the level of seat base. I guess it is going to work for those kind of cars, but I never tried it.
2. The "long path" seems to be safer. However, it requires very very long seat beat. Most of the sedans don't. It does not work in our second car Toyota Camry. My friend tried to use it in her VW Passat and failed. Both cases the seat belts fall short for long path. It's literally LONNNNNNNG path. In our Honda Accord I just manage to install it using "long path", but it requires good amount of time and patience. Little bit of twisting in belt makes latch-plate not reaching buckle and I need to start all over again.
Bottomline: If you are not planning to use LATCH, check what kind of seat belt you have. If your buckle is few inch above from the base of back-seat and your seat belt is not long enough, this car seat might not be suitable.
Get more detail about Britax Frontier Booster Car Seat Rushmore.
No comments:
Post a Comment