Radian short strap car seat

[Unregistered]

Yes, I am stuck with one of those car seats.

My son is below the weight and height limit but we can barely do up the straps now. I called pjm distributions in Vancouver and was extremely unsatisfied. I have to ship it to them at my cost - I asked the customer service rep - are you crazy? From Montreal? Do you know how heavy this seat is? They will repair the seat and return to me.

I have read on this site others who have had new seats shipped to them to fix this problem. I have emailed russ@skjp.com with no response. Does anyone have suggestions on who else to contact? We are running out of room and I don't know what we would do without the seat for 3-4 weeks for repairs.

I love this seat but this really irritates me. The service rep from pjm insists there is nothing wrong with the seat and that really small anthropomorphic test dummies were used. The car seat has an expiry of 7 years and he said, well, you can't expect to use it for 7 years! If my child still fits the weight and height requirement, I certainly do.

Any help is appreciated.

Valerie

[canadiangie]

I have no suggestions when it comes to SK, I'm sorry. :thumbsdown:

What sort of clothing does your son wear in the car? Is it thick? If it is, he shouldn't be wearing it anyway, but in your case it could be forcing you to loosen the straps even more. Thin-but-warm layers is much safer, and will offer your more harness to work with.

This is a long shot, but is your child under 30lbs? If he's under 30lbs he could rear face again, which would force you to move the harness down to a lower set of slots, and therefore buy you more time in the harness.


As for the "small dummie" excuse, wow that's news to me. I won't get into my thoughts on SK and the short strap fiasco, but it seems to me, that yes, if your child is under the 48lbs, and has shoulders under the top slots, then yes they should be able to use it until it expires. I know of a few kids closing in on age 7 that can still fit in a Radian.


Again, I'm sorry about this, it Really stinks. :mad:


ETA: I have no idea what Transport Canada thinks about the Short-Strap issue, but maybe you could PM "Allport" and ask her opinion on what, if anything, you can do?

[shauburg]

Does anyone have suggestions on who else to contact?

Did you try all of the different phone #s and e-mail addresses from their Canadian web-site (http://ca.skjp.com/customer_service/support.php)? I believe that their new Canadian office is already open.

[Pepse]

the new office isn't open to January

I would try again in the new year but you should be able to email them at this time. I can't find the reply from the "new guy" that told me that but said he couldn't help me with anything until January.,

[smurf]

I had the same problem last year.

I ended up calling Russ at SK USA directly (not sure exactly how this happened, but I remember giving my info to a rep and he called me back at home).

What I ended up doing was giving my credit card# to SK/PMJ, they sent me a new Radian and I shipped the old one in the new box. I shipped it via Canada Post (cheapest snail mail), at my expense unfortunately. It seemed an acceptable solution.

All I got from PMJ was some bogue email about my seat having a 48 lbs limit. They never admitted to having seats with short straps.

I strongly suggest getting in touch with SK USA - the Canadian distributor was no help at all to me.

Good luck, HTH!

[Rockafeller]

Hi there,
I too have 2 short strapped Radian's. The short strap isn't an issue yet but I too have been in contact with Russ and was told that they would replace the straps at my cost of shipping the seat to them in Vancouver (and back), even though I live an hour away and go there from time to time. I'd like to save shipping and drive it there and have been told no it has to be shipped so it's fair to everyone (personally I think that is crazy as they were previously giving new seats to everyone and now they are just changing the straps to longer ones as well they can't be fair to everyone - shipping costs are different from different locations). Anyways....I too found the customer service to be lacking and they weren't concerned about my issues at all. Also who can go without their car seats - that is crazy! I personally don't think I would purchase another item from this company (or recommend them to anyone) because of this issue. I share in your frustration!

[Unregistered]

Thanks for all the suggestions. It would seem that the days of getting a replacement carseat for a short strapped one are gone.

I will try to call Russ directly at SK and see if there is another alternative and try the new Canadian office in January. I haven't escalated my dissatisfaction beyond the first call to customer service but I intend to. I am extremely disappointed with this company and won't be buying another Radian car seat for my second child on the way in March. The shipping instructions were pretty funny as well - it must be shipped with all original parts back to PJM or they will reject it and force you to re-mail the whole package. What a fiasco. Is Britax customer service better than this?

Regarding the snowsuit being too bulky, the straps were snug before winter came and now we do it up under his coat so it fits properly. Even then, he is strapped in pretty tightly and luckily we have not tried any long trips because I know he wouldn't last.

Have a great day,
Valerie

[oursonend]

Yeah, that sucks. I also got no response from SKJP when I contacted them about the same issue.

Have you considered contacting the place you bought it? I returned mine to Canadian Tire (mine was a short-strapped one from the RN 48-lb $99 sale). Canadian Tire took it back. They said they have a one-year warranty on everything except hockey sticks. :thumbsup: It is annoying that you can't exchange it since they don't carry them anymore.

Just thinking... I have one I've been meaning to put on craigslist but have been dawdling, 48 lbs from the $99 sale but with the regular long harness (it was the one I got in the exchange), never used, and I'm in Montreal too. If you go the route of returning yours, contact me about my extra if you want. :)

[Mara1973]

Oh , way to get me fired up about this again lol...Russ and I went back and forth NUMEROUS times on this one. And I was back and forth with Barb on it too. There is nothing else that can be done. Barb managed to get them to replace 2 for someone else I was dealing with, but I have not had any luck with some others. I happen to own 4 of them and 2 have the strap issues. My DD who is 7 uses one of them, but is so thin at 39lbs it still just fits her. She does not wear her coat in the car, but I can assure you it would not fit her long if she were any heavier. My son at 38 lbs and 4 years using a long strap one since he is a bigger build than DD.

Initially they were having people ship their seat at owner expense, then would send a new seat back at SK expense. I got Russ to work out so he would take a credit card deposit and send the seat first like Britax does so people would not be out a seat. That worked for a bit, but people were still on the hook for shipping one way. They they changed it to want the owner to pay both ways.

Initially it was said to have affected 25 seats, then it came to the point where I hand my hands on or knew of at least 25 seats. And those were just the ones that came to the surface on these boards. My emails with Russ became a tad heated at the end I will admit, I was so ticked.

He replaced the seats for the person I was talking about, cause Barb was busting his a$$ and he called it a sensitive situation. I would replace two seats to get TC off my butt too lol.

He insists that short strap was tested and fit the 6 year old dummy well, they just decided to go with a longer strap after and somehow these seats were made with the initial strap.

Now I just went backand read all my email from Russ and set myself off again lol

Mara :)

[smurf]

Oh , way to get me fired up about this again lol...Russ and I went back and forth NUMEROUS times on this one. And I was back and forth with Barb on it too. There is nothing else that can be done. Barb managed to get them to replace 2 for someone else I was dealing with, but I have not had any luck with some others. I happen to own 4 of them and 2 have the strap issues. My DD who is 7 uses one of them, but is so thin at 39lbs it still just fits her. She does not wear her coat in the car, but I can assure you it would not fit her long if she were any heavier. My son at 38 lbs and 4 years using a long strap one since he is a bigger build than DD.

Initially they were having people ship their seat at owner expense, then would send a new seat back at SK expense. I got Russ to work out so he would take a credit card deposit and send the seat first like Britax does so people would not be out a seat. That worked for a bit, but people were still on the hook for shipping one way. They they changed it to want the owner to pay both ways.

Initially it was said to have affected 25 seats, then it came to the point where I hand my hands on or knew of at least 25 seats. And those were just the ones that came to the surface on these boards. My emails with Russ became a tad heated at the end I will admit, I was so ticked.

He replaced the seats for the person I was talking about, cause Barb was busting his a$$ and he called it a sensitive situation. I would replace two seats to get TC off my butt too lol.

He insists that short strap was tested and fit the 6 year old dummy well, they just decided to go with a longer strap after and somehow these seats were made with the initial strap.

Now I just went backand read all my email from Russ and set myself off again lol

Mara :)

I totally agree with you, there's not way only 25 seats were affected by this. I wish they'd just cought it up and admit having made a serious mistake.

And there's no way the short straps would fit a 6 year old dummy. That's a plain lie. My average-sized 3 year old was complaining about the harness being too tight.

This situation is a real shame because the Radian is a great seat.

What a PR disaster!

[Unregistered]

I wouldn't mind shipping it to Toronto at my expense if they would send me a new seat in the mean time so that there is no lag time. I can't do without the seat for any amount of time, even with him jammed into it now.

I agree - what a PR disaster. To argue that there is nothing wrong with the seat is just wrong.

I had a response from Russ - he suggested that I wait until January and contact the new SK office in Toronto and work it out with them. Perhaps they will be more flexible than PJM in Vancouver. I can only hope.

It was pretty comical when we took the seat out of the car and tried to figure out how to make the straps longer. And then I went on the internet to find out that it wasn't us, it was the seat! I felt like such an idiot.

Thanks to all.
Valerie

[HONEYhas3]

I have a short strap seat also.... its starting to get snug on my 40lb 3.5yo DD. We will be upgrading to a Frontier.