Graco Nautilus - belt path changes - with pics

Often folks state that they don't like the GN fit as a booster. We just noticed that the red part at the belt path is thicker on the newest GN seats.

I took some pics of my dd (51" tall, 50lbs, nearly 7 years old) to show a comparison and see if the fit is better with the new models. The seat is installed with the recline for my son to use with the harness. My dd would be exactly at the height where her shoulder would be maxing out the harness. Both seats are installed in Mazda MPVs with lower anchors & top tether, with harnesses shoved out of the way and with recline mode.

Any opinions on the fit of the old & new styles based on the pics below?

Does the change in style make a difference?

We're not going to use the GN for dd as a booster ourselves, but these pics & comments might be helpful for others.

Old style - skinny red. Black Breakers cover, 2003 MPV.



This pic shows her growing room at the max headrest height - not too much. This seat was installed at one click back to fix ds's headslump. The Garnet was installed slightly more upright and had a tad more shoulder growing room.


New style - thicker red. Grey Garnet cover, 2000 MPV with 2002 seat.




This last pic has her holding a pencil at the top of her hip bone.

Wow. Both look fantastic, but the newer one is amazing.

Wendy

Thank you for the pics. I have never had a problem with fit in GN in booster mode.

That is a big change in the path!
Thanks for posting this!

From what I've seen people say, it isn't the fit that people have a problem with on the GN, its that it can be insanely hard to buckle in some cars because of the arm rest/cup holder. I bought DS a monterey for when we make the switch to full time booster because the base of the GN is wider than my seats('11 forester) so the female end of the buckle comes out from behind the seat plus the stalks are short and floppy. There's no way in heck DS would be able to buckle himself. If the armrest things were removable I would totally use it as a booster because its great that you can latch and TT it in booster mode.

scariestone said:

From what I've seen people say, it isn't the fit that people have a problem with on the GN, its that it can be insanely hard to buckle in some cars because of the arm rest/cup holder. I bought DS a monterey for when we make the switch to full time booster because the base of the GN is wider than my seats('11 forester) so the female end of the buckle comes out from behind the seat plus the stalks are short and floppy. There's no way in heck DS would be able to buckle himself. If the armrest things were removable I would totally use it as a booster because its great that you can latch and TT it in booster mode.

Click to expand...

Back in the olden days when the seat first came out and we all took a million pictures of it, lots of the smaller kids had the belt ride really high on the abdomen. Not a problem for all kids in all cars, especially not those of us who harness to near the limits, but it was definitely a *wow, that pretty much sucks* belt fit on way too many kids.

I am curious as to what that would do to the belt fit in backless mode. It looks like a very nice fit on her! Even the before pics are decent, but I can see a noticeable improvement with the new style guides.
My daughter had a pretty poor fit in the GN at 6 years, 50ish pounds and shoulders at top harness slots, definitely worse than your "before" pics. I switched to another seat as I wasn't happy with it.

Sent from my iPod touch using Car-Seat.Org

Thanks, all!!

I just took pics of my son (who uses this seat with harness) and will post those later. The top of the belt was below the top of his hip bone, but not as much as dd. Both of my kids are bean poles, so the fit might be much different on a stockier kid.

joolsplus3 said:

Back in the olden days when the seat first came out and we all took a million pictures of it, lots of the smaller kids had the belt ride really high on the abdomen. Not a problem for all kids in all cars, especially not those of us who harness to near the limits, but it was definitely a *wow, that pretty much sucks* belt fit on way too many kids.

Click to expand...

Gotcha. I probably never read threads I came across with that issue since I've never had the problem of DS being "too small" for anything car seat related. His giant butt doesn't even fit in a TB and he's barely 5.

scariestone said:

From what I've seen people say, it isn't the fit that people have a problem with on the GN, its that it can be insanely hard to buckle in some cars because of the arm rest/cup holder. I bought DS a monterey for when we make the switch to full time booster because the base of the GN is wider than my seats('11 forester) so the female end of the buckle comes out from behind the seat plus the stalks are short and floppy. There's no way in heck DS would be able to buckle himself. If the armrest things were removable I would totally use it as a booster because its great that you can latch and TT it in booster mode.

Click to expand...

This is the problem we have. Seemed like overnight he outgrew the harness . I used it in booster mode for about 3-4 days and DS never once was able to buckle it himself. I actually want to give it another shot as that isn't why I switched him to the Regent in my car...it was the fact that he couldn't stay in position with MIL sitting next to him.

Wow, great find! I can't believe the difference :cool!:

that's a great improvement... and for those with older seats... I bet you could order the new style bottom as a replacement part if you want to so it will make a better hbb option.

Kat_Momof3 said:

that's a great improvement... and for those with older seats... I bet you could order the new style bottom as a replacement part if you want to so it will make a better hbb option.

Click to expand...

Aren't you smart!