Fact or fiction?

When my son was an infant, maybe a year and a half ago, I was considering the Evenflo seat with the latch that tightens itself as you push down on the seat. It also had a no rethread harness. I asked my pediatrician about it, I know, I know, wrong person to ask. Anyway, she said that with the moveable parts she didn't feel it was as strong/safe as other seats, i.e. ones without moveable parts. I have read on here a few references to SK making the same claim, is there any truth to this?

Sounds like the Symphony. Also sounds like they were pulling stuff out of nowhere. I guess there is always something to be said for less complexity and fewer moving parts in any product. Retractor systems have been around a long time, though, and anything that goes into a carseat is pretty well tested. I am pretty sure that no major organization like Safe Kids would come out and say anything like this about a particular seat, though.

All the seats pass the same standards, so they should all be equally as safe.

That said, my own personal reason for disliking infant seats (aside from their general unwieldiness) is that, when installed with a base, you've introduced new places for mechanical failure. From my own standpoint, that bugs me, but I know that all the seats pass the same standards and I don't remember ever hearing anyone say "Oh man, this mechanical failure occurred during an accident!" for any of the seats currently on the market, so I'd feel comfortable recommending any seat to a friend, if it was a seat that suited their needs and their child and their car and I couldn't get them to come on here for direct advice from a tech.

Wiggles said:

All the seats pass the same standards, so they should all be equally as safe.

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they pass the same minimum standards. Certainly there are some who go beyond that.

crunchierthanthou said:

they pass the same minimum standards. Certainly there are some who go beyond that.

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I'm fairly sure the minimum standards include the seat actually working in the prescribed manner, or else the seats would be recalled. Or we'd have reports of (for example, haven't heard this so don't freak!) "The infinite harness adjuster on the Marathon 70 consistently slips out of place on my seat!" "Oh, and mine too!" "And my axe!" "And my bow!"

Since we haven't heard that, I'm assuming that there's no seat currently on the market that's seeing a tonne of mechanical failures. And if I were really going to be horrifically concerned to the point of reducing every possible point of mechanical failure, then I'd only recommend rear-adjust seats and so on.

Besides, since the 'advanced' standards don't apply to all seats and all seats aren't tested under them, we have no way of knowing for sure that any of the 'advanced' standards actually increase safety. For example, I like the steel frame on the Radian, but for all I know, it reduces ride down time and increases forces on a child rather than helping to protect a child, much like older cars with no crumple zones, despite looking 'better' after a crash don't protect occupants as well.

I dunno... my cars have had shoulderbelts that slide up and down for years now, do I feel like they are less safe than immobile ones? Nope...and I weigh several times as much as the heaviest children seats with sliding harnesses are designed for. I guess if no one else thinks that's an apples-to-apples comparison, then I defer to Wiggles: there haven't been a rash of recalls on seats with infinite or non-rethread harnesses...from 10+ years ago with the first Alpha Omega and the Wizard and all the new seats coming out with that feature probably go to show it's nothing to worry about