Question Help in choosing a car seat for my 1yo or 4yo?

Thirsty4Knowledge said:

Hi! You came to the perfect place.

Are you in Canada?

Do you know when your Marathon expires? I would also suggest to pass it down but my decision would change if it was close to expiring.

The Frontier is an excellent seat and will last a long time. It has a 9 year expiration so you will probably even be able to pass it down to your 1 year old in a few years.

The Marathon and Frontier are wide seats so I suspect that they will be hard to fit next to each other but it could be doable on a very wide seat. Is this a must for you? We can also recommend some seats that would puzzle well together.

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tam_shops said:

If you bought your Marathon (MA) new, it should still have 2-3years left on it, if that is the case, then I would certainly buy the older child the new seat. If not, it would depend on when it expires and how long you want to RF and it would change my answer too.

Best bets to get a child over 40# harnessed so you can booster are:

Frontier $300
Nautilus $167 brown, $181 pink, $200+ black
Maestro $90

The TRU ones are on sale/clearance, so I'd be quick!

The Maestro only has harness to 47# (in Canada), but is tall enough to harness my short 5 3/4YO and he's almost 40#. It measures about an inch smaller than the Nautilus, but does fit nicely beside our classic MA. It is lighter and has a more plastic less solid feel than the other two. I have one for our d/c seat.

The Nautilus is our spare seat and more solid than the Maestro. It has harness to 65#. It does not fit in my car in the spot the Maestro does, but does fit w/ just 2 seats in our back seat.

Frontier also has harness to 65# and is next on my list to buy! LOL It has harness to 2" taller than other two seats. I would hop that Britax thought about puzzling this seat next to the MA when designing it but it's been awhile since I had one in my car and I don't remember how well it fit beside our MA.

tam

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mamamajuly said:

My Marathon was made in Dec. 2007, so that means it's still good until Dec. 2013 (expiration after 6 years?), when my baby will be just over 3 yo.

The Nautilus in pink is a really interesting price! It is out of stock though, I wonder if I could still find it in stores.

I guess the best thing would be to try the Nautilus and Frontier in our truck and see if they fit.

From what I understand, the difference between the Nautilus and Frontier is that the Frontier converts to a highback booster, and the Nautilus is only a harness seat - am I right? Then we could use the Nautilus as long as we can, and switch to a backless booster when our daughter doesn't fit in the Nautilus anymore (around 6 yo?). So my question would be, how does a highback booster and a backless booster compare in terms of security?

***Ooops, just checked the Nautilus again and saw that it does convert to a highback/backless booster up to 100 lbs. So - what would be the differences between the Nautilus and the Frontier?

Another question: is it worth it to get the Frontier XT SICT, with the side impact foam added to the sides?

Last question: what about the Sunshine Kids Radian?

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rxmommy said:

I'm guessing that the SICT on the Frontier would negate your ability to put the seats side-by-side. No one really knows what they do or if they are "worth it" because there are no standards for side-impact testing and safety.

TRU=Toys R Us

I'll let someone else weigh in on the backless/highback booster thing. For a younger child though, there is an advantage of the back reminding them to stay up straight and sit still. My kids generally ride in highbacks because it keeps them in position when they sleep. Do you have headrests all across the back row? Our truck doesn't have one in the middle, so I can't put a backless there because kids (and adults!) need headrests up to their ears.

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snowbird25ca said:

The Mariposa (pink) pattern of the Nautilus was only carried as a special order, so you're unlikely to find it in store unless your store made special arrangements to stock it.

You're right that your Britax is only good for 6 years. The new Marathon - what is currently available in stores, is good for 7 years. There was a complete design change and even the shell itself was changed in composition. That might explain the reason the sales person told you 7 years.

For the SICT Frontier, as someone mentioned, there are no side impact standards in Canada or the US. Britax's numbers indicate that those cushions reduce the forces transferred to the child's neck by 50% in a side impact. What methodology, and how that carries forward to a vehicle like a pick-up vs. a small car, or a vehicle with side curtain air bags vs. one without any, isn't known.

In my educated opinion, the benefit the side cushions is more likely to be measurable to the occupant sitting beside the seat on a more regular occurence than to the actual occupant of the seat. I would guess that in a vehicle less than 10 yrs old which had good side impact performance that the difference would be much less compared to if you drove an old dodge neon. (I pick on the neon because those were like tin cans in a collision.)

All that being said, side impacts account for less than 10% of all collisions - but they're also the ones most likely to cause serious or fatal injury. My own evaluation of those side bags is they may make a difference in possibly 5% of collisions, but it would take just the right circumstances for them to make a significant difference. I don't think they hurt anything, but I do view them as falling largely in to the "peace of mind" category. It might make a difference, but it's going to be a rare occasion and even then I'm not sure how measurable the difference would be in terms of reduction of injury...

Differences between Nautilus and Frontier:

- Frontier XT has 1.5" more harness height
- Frontier XT has minimum of 2yrs and 25lbs, Nautilus (new ones,) are 1 yr and 22lbs.
- Nautilus converts to a backless booster, Frontier is only a high back.
- Frontier good for 9 yrs, Nautilus good for 6yrs in harness and high-back booster mode; 9 yrs in backless booster mode.
- Frontier has installation challenges in some vehicles and instructions that can be complicated, Nautilus is pretty straight forward in most vehicles.
- Frontier has more crotch depth than the Nautilus and has one more crotch buckle position. Seated area is deeper, and the interior width is wider as well. It may be better for kids who are broader, but I've never had issues with the Nautilus with either of my kids and my dd was harnessed to over 6yrs old in it.
- Nautilus has to be 100% on the vehicle seat in booster mode. I don't believe the Frontier has that requirement.
- Frontier has push-on UAS connectors, Nautilus has hooks.

I'd say those are the major ones. There are some other minor ones you'd notice if you buckled your child in in-store, but they're fairly minor IMO and not worth listing.

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