Bought an Avenue & returned it

I bought a Safety 1st Avenue while they were on sale at Kmart this week. I was really excited and thought this was going to be the perfect seat for us after seeing everyone rave about how great the Uptown is. But I had to return it. Here's why:

First, I'll start with the good points. The cover was nicely padded and I loved all the EPP foam. It fit both my 4 month old DD and freakishly tall 2 year old really well. My 2 year old still had about 2-3 inches to grow and he has already outgrown the Scenera, Titan, and Comfortsport just for comparison. I also liked that it was lightweight and easy to carry. I also liked the price. It was a decent, nicely padded seat with high top slots for $72.

Now for the reasons I returned it. When I first pulled it out of the bag I noticed some weird cutouts on the bottom of the shell. After looking at some pictures of the Uptown on this site I believe that the bottom of the Uptown is flat. So I have no idea what the purpose of the cutouts are. So when I tried to install the Avenue rear facing with noodles the noodles would slip away from the seat bight and bunch up in the cut outs and I wasn't able to get a decent recline angle. I tried three of the huge noodles in a pyramid and I was still unable to get a decent recline. If the bottom was flat then it would have been fine.



Then, the harness adjuster is absolutely terrible. The adjuster is very low on the shell but the hole in the cover is much higher making it almost impossible to reach. So once you fish around in the cover and finally find the button and push it the adjuster strap gets caught between the cover and your finger making it extremely difficult to loosen the straps. The first time my husband tried to get the baby out of the seat he got very annoyed said that it was ridiculous how they designed it and he's not dealing with this on a daily basis. I had to agree with him. It was a pain. If they just made the hole in the cover match up with the button then it would have been much better. But the best thing for them to do would be to move the adjuster up.





Another thing I noticed was that the bottom slots are very high. My 4 month old was just barely even with them and she is using the top slots of her Snugride. There is no way this seat would fit a newborn.

Overall, I'm really disappointed we had to take it back because now we are back to square one on finding a seat that fits our needs.

Thanks for the review, bummer though!! That cutout is strange, and I can see how the noodles would slip. So, the avenue & uptown don't have the exact same shell?

Oh wow, I didn't even notice the bottom was like that when I looked one over at K-Mart today. Maybe I'll have to make another trip to check them out again. Here is a side view of the Uptown for comparison.


I did notice the same thing about the harness adjuster and am very disappointed in it. Why have the fabric opening up higher than the harness adjuster? It makes no sense.

I have really liked my Uptown and was really not impressed with the Avenue. I figured they had made some improvements, but I guess I was wrong.

I know it doesn't really matter now that you've returned it, but when you had a pyramid of pool noodles, did you have them taped together? If so, were they still slipping under the seat with them taped together?

That is a very strange cut out . I wonder why it is like that.

jka1217 said:

I know it doesn't really matter now that you've returned it, but when you had a pyramid of pool noodles, did you have them taped together? If so, were they still slipping under the seat with them taped together?

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Yes, they were taped together.

I would've added more noodles, lol, there's not much you can do sometimes. I did hate that about my Uptown, the super low adjuster strap, but I loved the seat otherwise.

thepeach80 said:

I would've added more noodles, lol, there's not much you can do sometimes. I did hate that about my Uptown, the super low adjuster strap, but I loved the seat otherwise.

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I thought about that but I was under the impression that 3 was the limit. If the harness adjuster wasn't so awful then maybe I would have looked into a better solution for installation but the low adjuster just sent it over the edge for me and I didn't want to deal with it anymore.

azgirl71 said:

That is a very strange cut out . I wonder why it is like that.

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My guess is that they took the material out as a weight or cost savings. Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense to me.

There is no set limit on the number of pool noodles you can use to achieve an appropriate recline. This doesn't mean it's okay to use a million noodles to lay a baby all the way back, of course , but we don't have to stop at three for any reason, if another one or two really is needed.

scatterbunny said:

There is no set limit on the number of pool noodles you can use to achieve an appropriate recline.

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Good to know. Thanks.

jka1217 said:

My guess is that they took the material out as a weight or cost savings. Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense to me.

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I was looking it over trying to figure out why they did it and I think it was to keep the cover on. If you look in the picture the elastic straps from the cover hook around the spikes. The Uptown cover is more of a shower cap style so doesn't need the elastic straps to keep it on so maybe that's why they did it? It seems silly to me though to make such a large cut out just to keep a cover on.:shrug-shoulders:

Again didn't notice the elastic there. I did notice that they had made that change to the cover in other areas. Guess I'm going to have to make a trip back to K-Mart to check out the bottom of this seat again. You are right, it does seem like an awful big cutout for elastic straps.