Car seats in Eastern Europe?

Some friends are going to Romania with their (then) 11 month old in a few months. They're not buying a ticket for the baby (already had that conversation). They want to have a car seat they can leave there, which may get used on one or two more trips.

Kids apparently don't really use car seats there, so they're trying to figure out the cheapest, easiest way to get a car seat there.

One option is to ship a Scenera NEXT ahead of time. They would presumably need to take a locking clip.

Alternatively, they could order something from a European seller to save on shipping and be 100% legal.

Finally, they could send a relative to buy something in a store in Craiova.

Carseat.se is definitely going to be more expensive than shipping a SN, but I have no idea what other options there are.

Had a look online and found this site: http://www.strollers.ro/Scaune_Auto

Translated: https://translate.google.com.au/tra...u=http://www.strollers.ro/&edit-text=&act=url

They seem to have plenty of car seats, even some decent brands like joie, maxi cosi and romer(britax).

Are there any that rear face past 13 kilos (~30 pounds)? He's approaching that size already, and they're planning to ERF. I think that means they're either looking for a U.S. seat or a Swedish seat, right?

Oh, wait, i-Size means they can rear face to 105 cm? Is that right?

lgenne said:

Oh, wait, i-Size means they can rear face to 105 cm? Is that right?

Click to expand...

No. ISize means that they must rear-face up to 15 months. ISize seats are currenty few and very expensive Some indeed rear-face up to 105cm, some have different limits, like the MC AxissFix only rear-faces up to 87cm of height. Also ISize means isofix-only, so might be not the best idea in case they are not sure what car they are using.
With any convertibles they find locally they indeed have to be very careful about what the RF limit is, because quite likely most of what they'll find will be RF to 13kg, with some even RF to 10kg only. Joie's convertibles are not that expensive and RF to 18kg, if those are indeed available there [I'm not from Romania].

Bringing an infant seat would be the easiest but the 13 kg weight limit might be an issue. Purchasing an infant seat over there gift be another option as long as the weigh it below 13 kg. The selection of car seats is at best very poor in Romania so be a bit careful.

The new R129 standard is very tricky for consumers to understand. The idea is that the seats will fit in i-Size approved vehicles and make things easy. Problem is that there are no i-Size approved vehicles, except a couple of brand new models, and these are more likely to arrive in the next 5-10 years since it's voluntary among car manufacturers.

Kind of like Isofix which was decided in the early 90's and was made mandatory 2013..... The new R129 standard does not offer any safety advantage over the ECE R44 standard and is used with Isofix only. The seats are in general very heavy, expensive and have a far shorter seat shell than for example other Swedish ECE R44 seats.

Purchasing a good Swedish RF seat might not be an option since the cost is higher than the "Toys R Us selection". Using a car seat on board an aircraft is irrelevant for safety which all the stats and data from FAA show very clearly.

Knowing what car is used in Romania would be helpful. If it's a small car some seats might not be suitable.

It's supposed to be an Opel station wagon, that's all I know.

A quick google search indicates that it comes with ISOFIX anchors. Those can be used with LATCH, right?

Oh, and AD just said ISOFIX became mandatory in cars in 2013. Assuming they can rely on that, no need for a locking clip, even.

He's a big baby and may not even fit in his infant seat by then. And they ideally want to be able to use this car seat on at least one more trip.

I'd just have Amazon (pick whichever european one has the best price) ship a joie stages or tilt or a hauck varioguard to Romania.

yes car seat with I-size norm can be used on isofix (european latch) and be rear facing to 15 month. and what the child weight? groupe 0 / 0+ (baby bucket) from 0 to 13 kg groupe 1 (harness car seat) from 9 to 18 kg groupe 2 and 3 (high back booster or backless booster seat ) from 15 to 36 kg or more and some european country rules made an age limits from 12 years old and a height limit