What is the safest choice?

OK, let me start off by saying I used to be a cpst but my certification expired this summer. A long story but just to let you know I am somewhat knowledgeable as far as a parent with a carseat question goes but I am having a hard time deciding what to do.

We live in TX and are planning a LONG car ride over the holidays to travel to IN and IL. For some reason, I am certain I remember learning in my training class that Britax seats had a longer expiration date on them.....11 years is what I thought. So, I had a Britax Marathon I had originally bought for my 7 year old that I was now using for my 3 1/2 year old. I was thinking about if I needed to buy a new seat for him and went to do some research and realized that my Marathon expired in April (manufacture was in April 05).

I actually have two other seats. Prior to using the Marathon I had been using a MyRide65, but noticed that the plastic at the buckle tongues had developed a crack, so I discontinued using it. At one time we had two cars and now just have one so that really is the reason for having so many similar seats. The third seat I have is a Apex 65. It is still in good shape, not expired as I bought it as the seat for my 2nd car when my older son was too big for a seat with a 40lb only harness. However, since I have put it in my car I have noticed a couple things that makes me not comfortable with it. The clip on the harness seemed to not stay buckled very well the first couple times I used it. Now I can get it to click closed and it seems pretty solid when I pull on it but I still have that thought in the back of my mind and don't understand why it wouldn't work very well at first but now seem ok...makes me distrust it. Also, yesterday when I got him out of his seat I noticed the seat moved so I checked it cause I had had a very solid install and it shouldn't have been moving like that. I have it installed with the lap/shoulder belt combination on the rear drivers' side because he is just 40 lbs so I figured it would be safer that doing LATCH and not realizing when he may go past the LATCH limit. The belt has the type of retractor that you have to pull out first to get it to lock with the child seat (sorry not remembering the name off the top of my head).

To my horror, I found the belt was not buckled, the kids deny messing with it (not that they couldn't be lying, but still, they know I don't kid around with this stuff). So now I am double doubting the seat.

I wrote to Graco about the MyRide and they are offering to replace it because the problem is not fixable. They said they will send me a shipping label to send mine back to them, they can't say which pattern it will be but I don't think they could possibly get it to me before we have to leave on Dec 16th. It's going to be incredibly difficult for me to scrape the money together for a new seat, and I don't feel he is by any means ready for a booster. I responded to their offer but expressed my concern about the timing and asked if there could be a voucher or something so I could pick one up myself, but waiting to hear back. I'm gonna have to find a box somehow to ship the seat in too, but that is a separate problem.

What would be your suggestions? Do I really have any choice? I plan on thoroughly restudying the Apex manual but I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything wrong with installing it.

Thanks for reading all that

Which clip on the Apex was acting up, the chest clip or the crotch buckle? It's the crotch buckle that does the work of restraining the child. The chest clip is a pre-crash positioner.

The seat being unbuckled has nothing to do with the Apex. It might have been one of your kids, whether they realized it or not, or it might have been a seatbelt failure (extremely doubtful), but there's really no way the Apex caused the seatbelt to unbuckle. Twist down the female stalk if the buckle is on the corner of the belt path. Give it a half twist to turn the release button inside to protect it from accidental unbuckling. And give your seats a quick bump/wiggle each time before you put your child in.

It was the chest clip. It is all one piece of molded plastic and it seemed very "flat" when I was having trouble with it not latching closed so I kinda pushed up on the part that is supposed to grab on to the other side and since then I haven't seemed to have trouble with it.

If it was the chest clip that was acting up, I wouldn't worry about it at all. Although I wouldn't recommend it, you could take the chest clip completely off and the seat should still be safe to use as long as the child doesn't squirm his or her shoulders out of the harness. Of course I'd recommend buckling it anyway. It is not a load-bearing piece of the car seat, and in a severe accident it is expected to (and designed to) break; the idea is that it should break before your child breaks, which is part of why it's so critical that it be positioned over the strong part of your child's chest. Proper placement of the chest clip is more important than the integrity of the chest clip or even the presence of the chest clip at all (i.e. improper placement is worse than no chest clip at all).

I would, however, call Dorel and see if they can send you a new chest clip. If you're lucky it will arrive before the 16th.

Assuming that you have proper head support (such as a vehicle head rest) since the Apex doesn't provide structural head/neck support, I would definitely choose that seat for your trip. There's nothing significant wrong with it. Do double-check the seat belt from time to time to make sure you don't have an issue with the belt, but you need to do that anyway regardless of which car seat you're using.

Yes, we do have a headrest on the seat there. Thanks for your responses. I'll check about getting a new clip, and I'm going to triple check everything in the light tomorrow too. Thanks for that info about the clip. For some reason it seems to me like without a clip that if he was thrown forward he could possibly partially slide between the straps, but I'm not carseat engineer LOL. But I did know about the positioning being so important so it worried me.

check your Private messages.

I'd call Graco back and ask them to send the new MyRide now so you can send the defective one back in the box from the new one. I'd be very surprised if they didn't do it for you.

Thanks for all the help, I knew y'all would help me figure it out. I will try my best with Graco. It's really the seat I'd prefer to use. I know the Apex is a safe decent seat, but it just feels so flimsy. The only reason I ever bought it in the first place was I needed an extended harnessing seat and at the time there just weren't alot of them around, and it was about all I could afford....and it was going to be the car he didn't ride in very much, but situations change...and then.....you still have the seat LOL.