Played with the MR65 - a question/concern

DS is no where near outgrowing his SS1 at 5 months, 11 lbs and 25.5 inches long, but DH was at work and I was bored and had a $5 off coupon for BRU, so off we went to play with the MR65.

DS had TONS of room over his head; granted he's still very little but I was impressed by that. The MR65 had the extra padding in it and DS was in a prefold and cover, so for older LO's in sposies it may be a bit more room. None the less, still a lot of room height wise. He was also on the bottom slots (he is on the bottom slots in his SS1 as well). I measured it at 8 inches to the top of the shell because yup, I'm *that* kinda nut job who has a tape measure in her diaper bag
Room above his head

He had about 5 inches from his heel to the back of the seat at BRU.
Room by his feet

I feel DS fit fine in it and my first impression is is that it's a great seat for those who need the extra pounds to get their LO's RFing longer, but after playing with it I have a concern/question. It steming from the fact that I broke the display while trying to get the feet off the bottom!!! I was taking the one foot off and the clip broke right in my hands.
Where it broke off
Broken plastic piece, shows stress marks

I was in no way attempting to rip off anything for sure and if you look closely, you can see white stress marks where it broke off. Upon closer inspection of the bottom of the seat the other side had the same stress marks on the same plastic tab. The upper two on both sides were also begining to show stress marks.

My concern of course then, wouldn't that be an issue that the plastic that is suppose to keep the feet on has already broken after less than a week or two being on display? Granted it's a display and people are rough with them (I work at a place that sells car seats, trust me, you'd be amazed at how people treat them!) but couldn't one assume that after a few installations the same stress marks would start to form? Is it really something that is a big deal? Not a big deal? Cause to my uninformed self, it seems like it is.

Any thoughts? Anyone notice it on theirs?

I'd be fairly willing to bet it's from someone trying to put the feet down and not knowing how. I'm a CPST and I had to read the manual in the store to figure out what to do with them... and you know how many people actually read manuals when they buy seats, let alone in the store!

However, if it happened on MY seat, I'd be calling Graco. I'm not a huge fan of those feet, but hey, 40 lbs RF, can't complain too much.

I agree. The feet are easy to flip and require putting no effort on them at all. If, however, you attempt to flip the feet without first reading the manual, you'll probably break something

Maedze said:

If, however, you attempt to flip the feet without first reading the manual, you'll probably break something

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I don't think reading the manual should be required to play with a seat at the store!

When Munchkin and I played with the MR at BRU two of the hinges on the my ride were already broken like that.

Oh yeah, I have no doubt that it's broken because someone was cranking on it before I got there (the one side snapped off before I even touched the other side that had stress marks as well so I feel comfortable enough to say that it wasn't due to me that the marks were there). But I guess that is part of my concern.

I knew that the feet had to flip down and how they needed to flip down, but what if someone didn't know how? What if all they read was the label on the seat which said that the feet needed to be put down? We all know people don't read the manuals, they figure it's easy enough to figure out without one (though idealy in a perfect world they would read it first and go get it inspected, but we live in this world). So to me, if the tabs can't even withstand someone cranking on trying to figure out how it works how is it going to perform in a crash? That is my concern.

Because to be quite honest and maybe I'm just overally cautious but if I had bought one and it had already broke like that, I'd be calling Graco and it would be going back.

I guess I just don't understand why they made the feet like that? Why not make it a stronger pivot point on the bottom?

I'm in no way trying to be arguementitive btw, just kinda wondering out loud. I do feel that this seat is important for keeping kids RFing and hope it causes other makers to make 40+ lb RFing seats... just wondering about this one

I agree, it's an atypical design and not intuitive. I'm guessing the broad flippy-feet have something to do with preventing over-rotation in a heavier child.

I do wonder why they didn't make it a bit sturdier, with big red directional arrows all over the flippy feet

Maedze said:

I agree, it's an atypical design and not intuitive. I'm guessing the broad flippy-feet have something to do with preventing over-rotation in a heavier child.

I do wonder why they didn't make it a bit sturdier, with big red directional arrows all over the flippy feet

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That makes sense about rotation but it's still odd.

And yes, I agree. There needs to be huge red arrows sometimes on things. I love my friends and DH, but none of them would feel it was "that big of a deal" to read how to do it correctly and would just crank on it till it "worked".