Narrow car seats for a sedan- Radian vs Enspira

Hello! We currently have a The first years "true fit" that is forward facing seat in our backseat and a graco sung ride bucket for our youngest. We need to upgrade to a rear facing seat for our youngest, and are trying to find the narrowest seat so that we could possibly fit a third passenger in the back seat of our car! 04 Civic 4dr sedan. I was looking at the Diono Radian, only 17 inches wide. I also noticed the Safety 1st Enspira convertible car seat, which claims to be 18 inches. Is the Radian worth all the $. Here in Canada the Radian goes for $359 and the Enspira goes for about $150!!!
Thanks very much!

Are you hoping for side by side installs?

I worked in an 02 Civic recently and I'm guessing the TrueFit isn't going to work, if you're hoping for side by side.

In case you're curious, I managed a rear facing radian, forward facing radian, and forward facing Graco MyRide. The MyRide puzzled well beside the ff radian, but didn't leave ANY extra space. We're talking tight. The TrueFit doesn't puzzle really well, in most cases. It's low profile but very wide...

If you go with a radian for use rear facing, be sure to get an Angle Adjuster along with it.

The Enspira is extremely low on my list of seats. If you can manage the price tag of the Radian, do that -- I thought it was on sale at Sears this week for $60 off but I can't see it on their website. It was there a few days ago though.

The Complete Air may also work, it's quite narrow. As Angie said though, pretty much nothing puzzles with the True Fit, it's so wide.

In case something else might work though - what are the ages and weights of your kids? And for the older child, the seated torso height (while sitting up straight measure from floor to shoulder). It may make more sense to put the little one in the True Fit and get a different seat for the older child.

I wanted to say that the base model Radian is $279. It's a perfectly safe option, especiallyif you want to keep costs down. I love the simplicity of the wing-less Radians.

http://www.snugglebugz.ca/radian-r100.html

^ and Snugglebugz is a great store. Free shipping, too.

Welcome!!

I would not recommend the Enspira either. If I am not mistaken, these were still using the old Dorel 3in1 mold for the shell before the 2012 standards changes, with the unusable top slot, short shell, etc? And they were pretty wide, actually. I am not sure what changes have been made to make these seats compliant but I am guessing they still aren't the best bang for buck in the price range. At the least, they usually make a pretty poor booster.

Honestly since your older child is FF already anyway, I would pass down the TrueFit to the younger child and install it RF, and get another seat for your oldest to FF in. How old is your older child, and what is his/her weight&height? While not incredibly narrow, you could look at getting an Evenflo Maestro (or Evenflo SecureKid400, no experience with this seat though) or if you were willing to go wider and forego the 3rd passenger look at the Graco Nautilus or the Britax Frontier (more expensive but can actually last till you can use seatbelt only, or you can pass down to youngest since it now has a 10ye expiry, IIRC).

If you want the convertible, you could look at the Radian or Complete Air, or even the Cosco Scenera, which is very inexpensive and narrow. It won't last as long as other options, but makes a very decent RF seat, leaves lots of legroom for front passengers in your model Civic (we used it for this reason), and then once it is outgrown you could pass down your TF and get a new FF seat or booster for the oldest depending on what suits at the time.

I have both the Enspira & a few Radians, and if I could replace the Enspira with a 4th Radian, I would! I much prefer to the base model & mid model Radians, which are the less costly ones

I don't like anything about it, but it's here, not expired, and already paid for and fits in the truck. The vehicle is an Expedition so width was not an issue.

If you have petro-points you could see if the Radians are still available through the Points-Shop, you can use a portion of points + a portion of real money to order. We got our 3rd Radian there, and while the site was showing the older SK Radians, we actually received the new Diono one.

Thanks for all the replies! I would imagine we would have the seats on either side on our back seat. My daughter is 2.5 years, under 30lbs and about 34 inches. Our son is 9 months old, 22lbs and 28.5 inches. My daughter is slight for her age, and son is in the higher percentiles. Interestingly, when sitting, the baby is almost as tall as the toddler!
I wish I would have found this forum before buying our Truefit. We are happy with it otherwise (although the material is fraying quite a bit from her shoes).
Thanks so much for the tip about Sears.ca for the Radian, they do look to be on sale until April 29th!!
I am thinking of buying a Radian, and then trying all the configurations (fwd facing Radian / rear facing Truefit etc i our backseat). We really want to avoid buying a bigger vehicle for a few years.
Thanks again to everyone. What an amazing website!
Jenny