Portable car seat with good safety rating

U

Unregistered

Guest
Could anyone recommend a portable car seat in the 15 to 36 kg category that would be light and would fold for transportation (e.g. by plane if I am renting a car at the destination), but would still be a "proper" car seat with a good safety rating rather than a booster, or just a safety harness attached to a soft back?

All I managed to find so far either have a weight limit of about 18 kg, which is not enough for my child, or have no safety rating (I located one which complies with the EU safety regulations, but these tests are not very stringent and some of the seats who pass them do very poorly in e.g. ADAC tests).

Thank you very much for all hints.
 
ADS

jjordan

Moderator
Welcome to car-seat.org. Your use of kg and referencing EU safety regulations make me think you must be in Europe; are you looking for a seat for use in Europe or in the US (or Canada)? If not in the US I'll move this to our international subforum where it is more likely that people will know about the seats available to you. If you will be using the seat in the US or Canada then we need to know that so that we can help you to find a seat approved for use on this side of the ocean!
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
Hello,

It's a bit complicated :)

Basically, I am looking for a portable (light & ideally foldeable) seat with a good safety rating that would serve us for combined transportation (plane & rental cars) travels from now until my daughter (currently 3.5 years old, weights about 17 kg/ 37lbs and is 106 cm/3ft6in tall) no longer needs one, irrespective of any applicable car safety norms or regulations. If I have to buy one in the U.S. or Canada and have it sent to Europe, so be it.

As for the details, we do currently live in Europe, so please do move the post to the international sub-forum - sorry, didn't see it!
We are looking to move to Canada though, and we do go to the U.S. for holidays quite often, so it would get used on both sides of the Atlantic and it would be great to find one compliant with the car safety regulations on both sides of the ocean. There is very little information available on European websites and your site is the first one this complex and this busy that I managed to find.

Thank you very much for your help, kind regards, Karolina
 

jjordan

Moderator
Unfortunately there are no lightweight, foldable seats in the US or Canada (and as ketchupqueen mentioned, every seat used in Canada must be certified for use there, which means you'd have to buy it there). In the US you're generally required to use a seat with US labeling, although you're less likely to be called out for using a non-US seat here. So if you got a Canadian seat and use it when vacationing in the US, that should be fine. There used to be some Evenflo seats that, if bought in Canada, were certified for use in both Canada and the US, so that might be an option if Evenflo is still doing that. I'm not sure about European seats, but maybe someone with more knowledge will weigh in.
 

ketchupqueen

CPST and ketchup snob
Staff member
Evenflo does still double-certify certain seats made for the Canadian market. I don't have a current list of which ones.

If you're willing to use a Canadian seat in Europe (where again they don't usually ticket for foreign seats though it's technically illegal) if the Evenflo SureRide or SecureKid is one of those it could be a good choice (though I'm not sure if they are- maybe one of our Canadian techs can confirm.)

There will not be one seat that will last you all your remaining car seat days, most likely; this would get you through your harnessed seat days, then later you would need a dedicated booster (but those are cheap) until 10-12 years when she fits the belt properly in every vehicle you use.
 

Adventuredad

New member
Age 3.5 is kind of tricky. Your child should ideally sit rear facing since it's so much safer. But these seats are not as easy to bring along while traveling. Using a booster pillow or high back booster at age 3.5 is early and not recommended. Kids usually lack both the appropriate size and maturity. If you must place your child forward facing at this age then a forward facing seat with a harness is likely better until your child is a bit older.

High back booster use from age four is usually recommended but maturity of the child can vary. Safety between a booster pillow and a high back booster is actually minor at best according to research. The main job of a pillow or hbb is to place the child higher on the seat so that the hip belt part of the seat belt is below the hip bones of the child. This is crucial since this part of the body is very strong.

Sleeping in the car be of importance depending on what kind of driving you will be doing. Except for placing the child higher on the seat the high back booster also keep the child in place while sleeping. Kids in booster pillows tend to slump to the side and a high back booster is recommended until age six or perhaps a bit longer. After that a booster pillow might be safer but it depends on size of your child and if you are using one of the newer and huge seats.

Side impact protection is basically useless regarding which forward facing seat is used. Pillow, harnessed or hbb. This is due to simple physics. Anyone which have spent time in the crash lab knows this very well. Things look nice in those static youtube videos but things are very different in real life. We have forward momentum and and also pre-impact braking which means head of child is often already in forward unprotected position at impact. Also don't forget about "iPhone/iPad neck" which makes the issue even worse. Using a car seat on board the plane is irrelevant for safety so not a factor. We have tons of data from FAA showing this very clearly.

If you prefer a nice cheap and light weight high back booster then use Britax Adventure. It's one of the cheapest seats available and a favourite. It's not foldable but weigh only 3.5 kg. It's also very comfortable. This is what I used for my kids until they were out of the booster age despite having access to any seat I wanted. It's a great travel seat since it's so light weight. I've brought two of these seats along during many trips around the world.

If you have further questions please send me a PM.
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
Thank you very much for your input everyone (especially adventuredad), this is really helpful (and guess you live & learn, never realised that only Canadian certified seats are allowed in Canada). Hope I can return the favour by answering someone else's questions some other time!

Karolina
 

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