Britax Marathon vs Graco Nautilus

Unregistered · Sep 8, 2013

My oldest son is 2.5 and weighs 30lbs. He is currently in the Britax Marathon. My youngest is ready to move out of his infant seat into the Marathon. I was ready to purchase the Graco Nautilus today and was very adamantly talked out of it by two sales people at the store. Both suggesting that I buy another Britax Marathon instead. Claiming it is so much safer than the Nautilus. I left the store feeling confused about which one to purchase. The Britax Marathon is very difficult to fit correctly in our Toyota Highlander. The fire department put a pool noodle under it to level it. It is difficult to install and move for travel or to clean. The Graco seemed like a nice option and is much cheaper but I don't want to put my chil in something that would be considerably less safe, as I was lead to believe by the sales people.

MommyShannon · Sep 8, 2013

How tall is your son? Is he already forward facing? If he is rear facing, he is 5 times safer than forward facing in the nautilus. So in that aspect, the marathon is safer. If both are forward, then they are both equally safe.

jgomez411 · Sep 8, 2013

And to piggyback off MommyShannon, pool noodles can only be used to adjust a rearfacing seat (not sure if you were aware) and the Nautilus is a forward facing only seat so if your child is rearfacing, I would cross that off the list. There are some nice convertible Gracos (Size4Me/MySize70/Headwise) that will last longer rearfacing if that is your goal.

Cnidaria · Sep 8, 2013

But it's not the model of car seat (Marathon) that would be making him safer, it's the direction of travel (rear-facing). There are lots of other convertible seats on the market, at lots of price points, that might work better for you in your vehicle and that would allow him to be rear-facing if you're interested.

As far as anyone knows, the Marathon in forward-facing mode and the Nautilus, if both are installed and used correctly, are equally safe.

mylittlet · Sep 9, 2013

Many stores like BBB or bru are very much still britax is the only safe seat. This is not true. All seats pass the same crash testing. So we can't say 1 seat is any safer then another seat. We can say that rf is safer then ff though.

Fallon · Sep 9, 2013

What year is your highlander? My mom has a 13 our marathon installs no problem

Celeste · Sep 9, 2013

I own a 2002 highlander and have had both a marathon (FF only) and a nautilus - they installed well. BUT - if your child is FF already, the top slots on the nautilus are definitely higher than the marathon so they will last longer!

If you wanted to go RF for your 3 year old - you would definitely not want a marathon for that either!

Good luck with your decision!

Britax Marathon vs Graco Nautilus

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MommyShannon

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