Short Strapped Radian

shauburg

Active member
I get what you're saying, but IMO, the harnesses not being long enough for the height of the slots is a different issue than seats that are just too short overall.
:yeahthat:

I really think there's no way around SK being wrong about this. We all know that height limits are approximate, and that seats are almost always outgrown by height before the weight limit is reached, but outgrowing a seat by height shouldn't be happening because too short of straps were put on. And they knew the straps were too short, and only changed their story now when more and more of the short strapped seats started showing up. I just don't think this can fall into a similar category as other seats that are outgrown before stated limits - unless they put that extra set of slots there just for show. ;)

...

If they'd just pay to have the short strapped seats sent back to them, and issue an advisory to have parents check their seats for short straps, then it would all go away. If nothing else, I'd be very surprised if an information notice wasn't issued to have parents check their seats and contact PJM if they have an affected seat. Parents have the right to know that the seat they bought because the slots were so high above their kids shoulders is going to be outgrown much sooner because the harness straps won't fit around them. :twocents:
:yeahthat:

Now, if ALL seats CLEARANCED for $99 came with short straps, and were clearly MARKED as such, that would be another story. Then customers would at least be going in with the expectation of getting what they paid for, not come out feeling like they have been 'cheated' out of what they are entitiled to.
:yeahthat:

Good points Ladies!


Yes, it sucks for the people that *unknowingly* got short strapped Radians, but welcome to the real world. I have replaced 4 seats so far because my son outgrew them due to his long torso. Keep in mind that he was still well within BOTH the weight AND height limits for ALL of those seats (and none of those seats were a 3 in 1). It's just a fact of life. :)

But you did not replace your 4 seats because they were defective (not unsafe, but manufactured differently then spec'd). This Radian issue is different then just outgrowing a seat before the child reaches weight or height limits.

What if you did your research and decided to buy a Radian because it had the highest top slots in Canada (not knowing about the short strap issue). Then a few years later your short-straped Aug 2006 Radian did not fit your child anymore because the straps were too short. And say you see your friends two July 2006 and Sept 2006 long-straped Radians and they still fit your child. Wouldn't you expect the company to "fix" (in this case replace) your Radian, no matter how much you paid for it? I would.

A child should not outgrow some Radians before he outgrows others, unless the parents were made aware of this limitation when they bought it! :twocents:

I am so glad my DS's two Radians (April 2007 65 lb Premier & Dec 2006 48 lb from CT) are long-straped and that I found all of you on this forum to educate me before I got them!
 
ADS

smurf

New member
Well, my new Radian is coming any minute now (UPS from Vancouver) but I have to pay to ship mine back, which kind of bugs me, seeing as it's clearly defective. Oh well, I'll probably ship it via Canada Post, or UPS standard, whichever is cheaper.

I really think SK is at fault for deliberately selling a defective product and falling back on the old "48 lbs vs 65 lbs" argument. I told them repeatedly I didn't care for the 65 lbs limit (my kids will be 8 before they reach this weight and their Radian will be long gone by then), I just want longer straps for my 3 year old to use his seat.

It seems the only way to get service is through SKJP USA.
 

hipmaman

Moderator - CPST Instructor
It seems the only way to get service is through SKJP USA.

I don't think so. My communication with Russ still has him refusing to admit the error or change their recent policy on how to handle the short strap situation. Lots of us don't get anywhere with either Russ or PJM.
 

smurf

New member
I don't think so. My communication with Russ still has him refusing to admit the error or change their recent policy on how to handle the short strap situation. Lots of us don't get anywhere with either Russ or PJM.

Really?
All I got from Vancouver is an e-mail telling me my seat had a 48 lbs limit, blah blah blah. I sent a bunch of other emails and left several phone messages and got absolutely nowhere. I phoned SKJP and Russ called me right back and basically fixed my problem. When the new seat wasn't forthcoming he called Vancouver and pronto, my seat was on its way.

That being said, if the Radian weren't the only seat that I could use in a 3-across situation, I'd never use one again, based on how they handled this short harness fiasco.
 

hipmaman

Moderator - CPST Instructor
Really?
All I got from Vancouver is an e-mail telling me my seat had a 48 lbs limit, blah blah blah. I sent a bunch of other emails and left several phone messages and got absolutely nowhere. I phoned SKJP and Russ called me right back and basically fixed my problem. When the new seat wasn't forthcoming he called Vancouver and pronto, my seat was on its way

I'm not joking. Russ has been as helpful as Brad which means a big fat zero!
 

gwenvet

New member
Is the short strap just a Canadian issue? I have a Radian and am not sure my 4 1/2 yr old will fit in the straps in another year or two. I'll have to check my DOM but can I measure?
 

smurf

New member
I don't know if it's a uniquely Canadian issue...
I have 2 Radians and one of them has short straps. Basically if you fully extend the straps and measure from shoulder to hip area you get around 25". I also measured the "long" straps but I don't remember the # of inches off the top of my head, but it's around 30" at least.
If I didn't have 2 Radians I don't think I would have figured it out. But my 3 year old (39" tall, second slots from top) barely fits in his seat anymore, while my 4 year old DD (44" tall, mostly legs though, top slot) has lots of room in her harness.

So, it's obviously a defect in some Radians sold in Canada. Those seat were manufactured in 08/2006.
 
A

alison

Guest
Hi everyone,
I haven't posted here before but I have been following this thread. I, too, have short-strapped Radians. Four of them! I had no idea there was such a thing until I tried to strap my 40 lb 5 year old into one - I can barely get the straps done up on him. And then I found out about the short strap issue.

I, too, seem to be banging my head against the wall to try and get it sorted out. I e-mailed Russ and got what I presume is the standard reply - that it is due to the switch to the 65 lb limit, blah blah blah, and here's what to do (pay to send them to Vancouver). It also states lots of conditions on the form he sent me that have to be met for them to even "evaluate" the seat and that if these conditions are not met then your seat will not be evaluated and it will not be returned. I wrote back to Russ saying I wasn't convinced of my ability to satisfy all of the conditions (namely, our name is not on the receipt) and I wasn't willing to take the risk of sending 4 car seats to Vancouver and them just disappearing! I haven't heard anything back. Meanwhile, there are three car sets in my car right now that it is very difficult for me to use!

Has anyone got any suggestions as to what to do or who to approach or......anything?.....to get this sorted out?

I had thought about taking them back to CT for exchange but chances are (a) I would just get SS ones back or (b) I can't exchange them because they no longer have any, then I have to take a refund - yes, I would have gotten rid of the seats but then I would have to go and buy other seats! I have four children to fit into a car (my 5 year old is the oldest), and I bought these seats specifically because I could get three across in the back.

I'm so frustrated and just getting more frustrated with the whole thing every time I go somewhere in the car.
 

ukmum

New member
Hi Alison,
I empathize with you about the short-strap radian problem you are having. If you purchased the seats less than ONE YEAR ago, you CAN take them back to Candian Tire.

Also, their website has an inventory checker for a store near you (by entering your postal code). If you go to the item description (ie. Folding radian car seat) and look on the right hand side of the screen you should find the option to check stock at a location of your choice.

I hope this information will be of some help and best of luck in sorting out your seat problems.

ETA: to make sure they aren't short strapped, just ask to take them out of the box before you exchange them. I know in the bigger cities that have a greater stock turnover, people were purchasing seats with a Date of Manufacture of Sept to December 2006, which were not short strapped. It is mostly August06 you have to watch out for.
 

tiger926

New member
Hi everyone,
I haven't posted here before but I have been following this thread. I, too, have short-strapped Radians. Four of them! I had no idea there was such a thing until I tried to strap my 40 lb 5 year old into one - I can barely get the straps done up on him. And then I found out about the short strap issue.

I, too, seem to be banging my head against the wall to try and get it sorted out. I e-mailed Russ and got what I presume is the standard reply - that it is due to the switch to the 65 lb limit, blah blah blah, and here's what to do (pay to send them to Vancouver). It also states lots of conditions on the form he sent me that have to be met for them to even "evaluate" the seat and that if these conditions are not met then your seat will not be evaluated and it will not be returned. I wrote back to Russ saying I wasn't convinced of my ability to satisfy all of the conditions (namely, our name is not on the receipt) and I wasn't willing to take the risk of sending 4 car seats to Vancouver and them just disappearing! I haven't heard anything back. Meanwhile, there are three car sets in my car right now that it is very difficult for me to use!

Has anyone got any suggestions as to what to do or who to approach or......anything?.....to get this sorted out?

I had thought about taking them back to CT for exchange but chances are (a) I would just get SS ones back or (b) I can't exchange them because they no longer have any, then I have to take a refund - yes, I would have gotten rid of the seats but then I would have to go and buy other seats! I have four children to fit into a car (my 5 year old is the oldest), and I bought these seats specifically because I could get three across in the back.

I'm so frustrated and just getting more frustrated with the whole thing every time I go somewhere in the car.

I am so sorry you are going through this, especially with 4 seats. We had a horrible experience with our short-strapped seat (got what we believe is a used seat as a replacement). Russ was no help, and Brad just ignored my emails, but did send the seat that sat outside in the middle of the night on my doorstep. Anyway, we absolutely don't trust this company at all as they are liars, not to mention that the Canadian distributor is disorganized. I wish I had some answers for you, but I wish you luck in being persistent and working out a solution that is good for you - bringing them back to Canadian Tire seems to be the best solution.

I am known as a consumer advocate to friends/family/colleagues as I constantly contact companies for both positive and negative concerns, and I have never seen a company with as bad customer service, disorganization and low integrity as Sunshine Kids - and that's saying a lot since I've had dealings with airlines and Bell Telephone. I thought they were the worst, but now that I see that Sunshine Kids is now lying by telling people that the short strapped seats were intentional, I realize that they have no integrity whatsoever. We like the design of the Radian as it seems like a sturdy seat, but we hate the company who makes it.

Good luck in your quest - I seriously would return them to Canadian Tire and be done with Sunshine Kids/TJs as they are horrible. Give your money to another car seat company that you know you can trust.

Tiger
 

canadianmom2three

Active member
I have to jump in, and let you know that not everyone has a bad experience with SK, or feels like they can't trust them. I have had nothing but stellar service from Russ (others there not so consistant) but he has gone above and beyond for me. I had my share of problems with short straps, but they were taken care of, and I have no trust issues what so ever with SK. Their customer service may have fallen a bit (due to what must be complete and overwhelming assault from many people with short strapped seats that to my understanding CT bought directly from manufacture, not even from SK), but to say that you should return your seat and be done with SK because of someone else's bad experience is a bit drastic. I think if you polled this board you would find as many people who have had great service, think the Radian is a great seat, and would STRONGLY urge you to continue using it. All seats pass the same tests, customer service has nothing to do with the safety of seats....yes one person got a seat that they believed was used, and had a bad time with the company. JMO but for me, that doesn't make them a horrible company that I won't trust. :twocents: Hopefully you can take them back to CT, I know some people got long strap ones from there (fingers crossed for ou, it makes a GREAT 3 across seat!)
 

smurf

New member
I also had great service from Russ (my new Radian came 2 days ago, and I sent the old one via Canada Post, although they really should pay for shipping).

I'm just not pleased with how they handled this whole thing. It has nothing to do with the switch from 48 lbs to 65 lbs, yet they keep trying to blame the whole thing on this. They just won't admit that their seats are defective, period.

I don't care for the 65 lbs limit. My kids are tall and thin (both around 33-35lbs now) and I'm positive they'll outgrow the Radian by height well before they reach the weight limit.
 

tiger926

New member
I have to jump in, and let you know that not everyone has a bad experience with SK, or feels like they can't trust them. I have had nothing but stellar service from Russ (others there not so consistant) but he has gone above and beyond for me. I had my share of problems with short straps, but they were taken care of, and I have no trust issues what so ever with SK. Their customer service may have fallen a bit (due to what must be complete and overwhelming assault from many people with short strapped seats that to my understanding CT bought directly from manufacture, not even from SK), but to say that you should return your seat and be done with SK because of someone else's bad experience is a bit drastic. I think if you polled this board you would find as many people who have had great service, think the Radian is a great seat, and would STRONGLY urge you to continue using it. All seats pass the same tests, customer service has nothing to do with the safety of seats....yes one person got a seat that they believed was used, and had a bad time with the company. JMO but for me, that doesn't make them a horrible company that I won't trust. :twocents: Hopefully you can take them back to CT, I know some people got long strap ones from there (fingers crossed for ou, it makes a GREAT 3 across seat!)

You honestly have no trust issues with a company that is now outright lying by claiming that the short straps were intentional, or, a company who is making customers pay to have defective seats shipped back to them?

I don't want people to misunderstand me - when you put the entire short strap issue on the table, my used or defective seat, the company's lying and backpeddling and the company charging customers to ship back a defective product, that to me is a company that I don't trust very much. I am not trying to talk people out of using their Radians at all, just because I had a bad experience (we still use our seat as well & hope nothing goes wrong with it), but I am hoping that people won't give in to SKJP's terrible customer service & backpeddling; therefore, if Canadian Tire will take the seats back, I say she should return them all and then if she decides that she wants new Radians, she can purchase new 65lb seats and not have to worry about how long her kids are going to fit in the defective seats for, shipping costs, being without seats, etc. Not to mention, it won't cost her any money out of her pocket to return them to CT. If she decides that she doesn't want to get more Radians (but it sounds like she has no choice since she needs to fit several car seats in her car), then she can choose another company that she trusts and one that won't make its customers pay for its mistakes.

Regardless of whether you got great customer service, as did most people on this board, the fact is, that now they are giving out horrible customer service by lying about the issue and charging customers to fix their mistakes. In fact, they gave out horrible customer service by not acknowledging the whole short-strap issue in the first place. I'll say it again - if I hadn't found you wonderful group of gals, I never would have found out that I had a defective car seat, and that is a big problem! You are right in that the company's bad customer service has nothing to do with the safety of the seat, but a company lying does speak to the integrity of the company and their mission. This company more than likely lied about the whole issue to save a buck - they should have recalled the seats, and sent new ones, end of story. Lying and backpeddling makes me concerned because I wonder what else they could lie about, and this really has me especially worried since their seats are made in China.

Good luck to all who are struggling with this issue. The bottom line is that a company who has child safety as their premiere product, shouldn't have let the whole short-strapped issue happen in the first place, but if it did slip by, then fix it properly, at no cost to the customer because it doesn't matter how good your car seat is, when you as a company start lying, then I as a customer wonder what else you've lied about, which then may translate into me not trusting your products.

Tiger
 
Last edited:

Jewels

Senior Community Member
Has anyone got any suggestions as to what to do or who to approach or......anything?.....to get this sorted out?

I had thought about taking them back to CT for exchange but chances are (a) I would just get SS ones back or (b) I can't exchange them because they no longer have any, then I have to take a refund - yes, I would have gotten rid of the seats but then I would have to go and buy other seats! I have four children to fit into a car (my 5 year old is the oldest), and I bought these seats specifically because I could get three across in the back.

Honestly, I would try to exchange them at CT for seat with a newer DOM if they have more if they don't i'd get your money back and then order online and get a 65lb limit seat. If you can return it and get the $200 (if you paid that) for the seat it would cost less in the long run to order new seats and pay an extra $25/seat instead of paying the shipping to ship it back to the company and this way it is guarunteed you'll have seats. Now if you got one of the $99 seats, I would either exchange them for a seat with a newer DOM or ship them back to the company if you can't find any in your area with a newer DOM. Just my :twocents:
 

CDNTech

Senior Community Member
I have no issues with SKJP. I've had fantastic customer service from them.

I don't think they are any different than any other company out there. They are all trying to make their bottom dollar work.
 

smurf

New member
Regardless of whether you got great customer service, as did most people on this board, the fact is, that now they are giving out horrible customer service by lying about the issue and charging customers to fix their mistakes. In fact, they gave out horrible customer service by not acknowledging the whole short-strap issue in the first place. I'll say it again - if I hadn't found you wonderful group of gals, I never would have found out that I had a defective car seat, and that is a big problem! You are right in that the company's bad customer service has nothing to do with the safety of the seat, but a company lying does speak to the integrity of the company and their mission. This company more than likely lied about the whole issue to save a buck - they should have recalled the seats, and sent new ones, end of story. Lying and backpeddling makes me concerned because I wonder what else they could lie about, and this really has me especially worried since their seats are made in China.

Tiger

I agree with you totally.
 

Stacey

New member
Well I sent Russ an email and left him a voice mail last week saying i would like to do things the same way smurf did by giving my credit card # to have a seat sent to me and have gotten absolutely no response.
 

TechnoGranola

Forum Ambassador
I, for one, am really glad I have read about people's experiences with SKJP. Last year we had an issue with an expensive stroller (coincidentally it had short straps so I could not fasten the 5 point harness with my infant in the stroller). It took them several months to resolve the issue and in the meantime I could not use the stroller I had bought because I could not use it safely. So, I bought another stroller and the end result is, I have $800 worth of stroller and accessories sitting in my entrance that has never been used and won't be used because we had to buy something else. The company really didn't give a darn even though it all stemmed from a defect in their product.

So, that was off on a tangent! :D My point is, that we don't want to ever be put in this position again. And it seems like SKJP doesn't handle problems very well. If we were to ever have a problem with a Radian, would we have the potential to be without a useable seat and even have to buy something else so we had something to use? From the stories I've read, it seems as if this could be the case. Due to this, the Radian is the last on our list of car seats to buy and we'll only be getting it if the Marathon (and maybe the ETA) doesn't work for our vehicle and/or child. Basically only if we are left with no other option.
 

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