Seat Protectors: Safe for Use or Vile, Evil Predators against Our Innocent Children? - Automated Feed from the Official

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momof3monkeys

New member
thanks for that. so i wasnt crazy after all. i had a great install with the prince lionheart original. ive since taken it out after getting a chewing on the boards here, but i do feel a bit better knowing that you did all this work lol. just goes to show u why some techs are ok with them and some are not. like i said, i had them in my car during my last check event and it didnt interfere with my install, and believe me they all checked it. but its gone, and its even great to know that maybe when we do take out the car seat the dents will go away after a few days. "now to remember if there was a spare crumb or cheerio on the seat" ouch:rolleyes:
 

sirrahn

Active member
I must admit that I still horde 3 original Prince Lionheart Seat Savers even though I only have one kid left who's not in a booster. My van seats have nary a car seat dent, and they've caught more nastiness than I care to think about.

I've never had any qualms about using them.
 

Chameleon

New member
I know I've gotten flack on this board for saying that I recommend the Especially for Babies one. I only recommend it IF they are insistent on using one altogether.
 

murphydog77

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
Thanks for the feedback here and on the blog :). I have to say I went into the installs with some preconceived notions about certain mats (no, not just the PL 2 Stage, lol) and I was surprised by the outcomes. I'm glad I did it and am happy to share the results.
 

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
One question, and I hate to nitpick because your work was truly incredible on a hot day. B But did you take out the mats with the Scenera still installed? I've done ok on the PL mats, or at least I thought I did, but now I'm second guessing all of those installs (though usually they're the ones where the parents wouldn't have left without them anyway). But a friend had some mats under her Wizards and with the lockoffs on the Britax I was able to pull out the mat from under the seat and then buckle again and her seat went from tight to three or four inches of movement. I found that was a really telling way to show if a mat is tight or not, and I've used it since with parents who are willing to play with me.

My car's so old that I don't really care, but I could see if we had a new car I'd want to put a thin towel under Piper's seat. She's a mess. And with a RFing child maybe a towel over the back of the seat.

Thanks for doing that!! That was quite possibly one of the most thorough blogs posts I've ever read.

Wendy
 

murphydog77

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
No. The only control I had in my "scientific" experiment, lol, was with the Eddie Bauer seat protector. I installed the Scenera with a locking clip before using the EB mat, unbuckled, then reinstalled the Scenera using the mat. It was a very snug fit, but it did fit.

The installs I got, with the exception of the Prince Lionheart 2 Stage were very tight and I couldn't have gotten the seat protectors out from under the car seat without ripping them. I think it comes down to having the car seat properly installed on top of the mat. What's the difference between installing a car seat on a vehicle seat with firm leather cushions and one with squishy leather cushions? Couldn't adding a mat be somewhat similar to installing a seat in a vehicle with squishy leather cushions?
 

Maedze

New member
One question, and I hate to nitpick because your work was truly incredible on a hot day. B But did you take out the mats with the Scenera still installed? I've done ok on the PL mats, or at least I thought I did, but now I'm second guessing all of those installs (though usually they're the ones where the parents wouldn't have left without them anyway). But a friend had some mats under her Wizards and with the lockoffs on the Britax I was able to pull out the mat from under the seat and then buckle again and her seat went from tight to three or four inches of movement. I found that was a really telling way to show if a mat is tight or not, and I've used it since with parents who are willing to play with me.

My car's so old that I don't really care, but I could see if we had a new car I'd want to put a thin towel under Piper's seat. She's a mess. And with a RFing child maybe a towel over the back of the seat.

Thanks for doing that!! That was quite possibly one of the most thorough blogs posts I've ever read.

Wendy

I have had similar experiences at check stations with parents who are convinced the seat is tight...until I remove the mat. Which is why I'll continue to recommend strongly against them.
 

Splash

New member
One question, and I hate to nitpick because your work was truly incredible on a hot day. B But did you take out the mats with the Scenera still installed? I've done ok on the PL mats, or at least I thought I did, but now I'm second guessing all of those installs (though usually they're the ones where the parents wouldn't have left without them anyway). But a friend had some mats under her Wizards and with the lockoffs on the Britax I was able to pull out the mat from under the seat and then buckle again and her seat went from tight to three or four inches of movement. I found that was a really telling way to show if a mat is tight or not, and I've used it since with parents who are willing to play with me.
Wendy


I think your problem there though was you manipulated the seat so much to get them out. You can't have a properly tightened seat and then just pull the mat out, it's not gonna just slide out easily. You'd have to wiggle and tug and move the seat to get the mat out. Once you've done that, the seat's not gonna go back to what it was. I can have a seat in perfectly but if I move it around enough I can easily make it move more. Sam's Coccoro is super tight, but if I move it up and down and rock it back and forth, it would eventually be super loose without the belt itself ever loosening.

I have no problem with a thin mat or a towel. Never have, never will. There isn't anything under my seats right now just because I don't really care, but if I did care (or I wasn't lazy), I'd have a towel under it.
 

southpawboston

New member
you know what i'm doing now? i have a solution that keeps both techs and parents happy. since the recaros have smooth bases and don't carve into seats like a scenera, i just install the seats without anything, then i tuck a long towel under just the front lips of the carseats. i let the towel hang down the front edge of the vehicle's seat and onto the floor, and spread the towel out over the floor mats. it covers the front of the vehicle seat, the center floor hump, and both rear floor areas. this way the towel catches just about everything that falls from the kids' shoes. i've found that the amount of crap that falls to the floor is about 84987345987345.43 times more than what falls onto the seat (my kids don't really drop food in the car anymore, so it's just sand and stuff from their shoes that created the biggest mess). so i really don't need to protect the seats... i need to protect the floor! since the carseats are installed without the towel, and the towel is just tucked under the front lip (about 1" in), there really can be no controversy at all :).
 

elle7715

Member
So it sounds like if you *really* wanted to have something waterproof and to catch crumbs, the Especially for Baby one is the way to go. We don't have anything under our seats and the car is a mess. After we have my FIL steam clean it DH wanted to put something waterproof under them but I didn't think there was a thin option. No leather over here, so I don't care about dents in the seat.
 

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
I think your problem there though was you manipulated the seat so much to get them out. You can't have a properly tightened seat and then just pull the mat out, it's not gonna just slide out easily. You'd have to wiggle and tug and move the seat to get the mat out. Once you've done that, the seat's not gonna go back to what it was. I can have a seat in perfectly but if I move it around enough I can easily make it move more. Sam's Coccoro is super tight, but if I move it up and down and rock it back and forth, it would eventually be super loose without the belt itself ever loosening.

I have no problem with a thin mat or a towel. Never have, never will. There isn't anything under my seats right now just because I don't really care, but if I did care (or I wasn't lazy), I'd have a towel under it.

I think it'd be hard for a locked belt, or a locked off belt, to loosen. Plus I take my time and usually fold it or do a section at a time. That's why I don't do it every time and have to have parents willing to play with me. And sometimes they're not starting with an acceptable install, but we compare their 1.5" of movement before to 4.5" afterward.

Wendy
 

Splash

New member
Nah, it's be easy. Just a different position. Like I can install his CCO rock solid, but it has no base. So I can grab the head and push it up toward the vehicle seat, and the front (where his feet would be) slides down, and then I can have tons of slack. Or a baseless infant seat you can push pretty much straight up toward the seatback and then have loads of slack, but it is an acceptable install before you tug and abuse it.

I'm having a very hard time imagining how a thin seat saver or towel can introduce 3-4 inches of slack into a belt with no other factors at all. It really can't happen, the angle that the belt goes through the belt path has to be changing. And just a slight change in that angle can make a tight seat really loose. Like if you install an AO on the base FF rock solid, but then recline the AO. The seat WAS super solid, but now it can be mega loose. You didn't unlock the seatbelt at all, you just changed the location of the belt path.
 

safeinthecar

Moderator - CPS Technician
Installing the seat tightly with the mat, then taking the mat out is doing it backwards. Install the seat without the mat, mark the belt or use a locking clip/lockoff whatever works, and then reinstall with the mat. There is no way the install can be loose if you do it this way, since it is set up for no mat. You'll probably have to work harder to get the with-mat install buckled, but the matt will not make the install any looser. I've been able to wiggle a Snugride base (that didn't move at all when installed without a mat) enough to wiggle a mat under it without uninstalling, so I don't think being able to pull a mat out from under a seat is a good guide for safe mat use.
 

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