Good Aunt - Stupid Mfg.

flipper68

Senior Community Member
Did a check up event tonight. Very few appointments and of those, 2 were no shows. :(

Last appointment is for a lady who arrives with a convertible seat uninstalled. It is brand new, for her NIECE - 2 mon. old who lives in Illinois (600 some miles away - or however wide IA is), no less, but visits frequently. Cool.

Oh, and the Graco when in smooth and rock solid, RF, middle position, in a 2 dr. with lap belt only. I want to say it was an older Chevy, but I didn't look too close.

Bummer comes when I read the ComfortSport Manual which said something like, "Seat is approved for use up to 30 pounds. However, not all children will fit comfortably until 30 pounds. After 20 lbs. if knees are bend when child is buckled in the seat, the child should be moved FF." :eek: :eek:
 
ADS

Splash

New member
Wow, they're not even telling you to wait for a whole year anymore, eh?
Charlie was over 20 pounds with bent knees by the time he was six months old.
 

skaterbabs

Well-known member
Yes, Graco has been really bad about the whole Rf thing, which is why I hesitate to recommend tem and actively discourage use of the Comfort Sport and steer parents to other seats. It's awful that Graco still promotoes such outdated information.
 

hsjwmom

New member
A few weeks ago I ran into a woman at Target who was buying the cute girl print one for her baby. She kept saying that it was almost time for her to turn her ff. I tried SO hard to convince her to rf to the limit and that the ComfortSport wasn't the best seat because of the harness slots, etc. Nothing doing. It was like talking to a brick wall. It really ruined my day. I'm still upset just thinking about it. Even more upsetting knowing what the ComfortSport manual says! I may start carrying cards with this website address on it, because I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to explain the why's of everything.
 

Alicia-N-2SafeBugs

Senior Community Member
Oh good greesh (as my 4yo would say). My sister tends to tune me out when I talk carseats, but perked up when I told her that I turned dd back RF a few months ago. "But aren't her legs all bunched up!?!" No. I sent her pics to prove it! Graco should be fired.
 

Splash

New member
And Graco is a HUGE manufacturer of seats that RF to 45+ pounds in Sweden, Norway, etc. Why can't they bring some of those seats which they are already making over here?
 

flipper68

Senior Community Member
Bummer comes when I read the ComfortSport Manual which said something like, "Seat is approved for use up to 30 pounds. However, not all children will fit comfortably until 30 pounds. After 20 lbs. if knees are bend when child is buckled in the seat, the child should be moved FF." :eek: :eek:

Just to clarify - Graco did say to stay RF until 20, it's the 20-30 lb range where they left "wiggle room" and leaned toward FF.
 

abacus2

Well-known member
My 2004 Evenflo Triumph manual says that it is best to use the seat RFing to the maximum limits of the seat.
 

abacus2

Well-known member
Jenny, my daughter RF in a Triumph till 15 months when I turned her because I didn't realize how much safer RF is, but she still had significant growing room. She's quite tall, always in the 75th-95th% for height with a torso height of 15.5" at age 3. So, while I believe you when you say 8 month olds can get too tall to RF in the Triumph, I'd say that it's probably along the lines of a 3 yr old outgrowing a Marathon (possible, but the kid is "off the charts" big). I wouldn't want parents to read your comment and think they need to throw out a perfectly good car seat thinking it won't meet the minimum RF requirements. I think you've exagerated to the point of using a scare tactic.
 

skaterbabs

Well-known member
Liz, I've had LOTS of kids come through checks nearly outgrown the Triumph well before 30 lbs, and the same applies for the Comfort Sport. The seats are just poorly designed, and over priced for the amount of time they can be used. It's not a scare tactic to tell parents that a seat will be outgrown quickly, especially when there are better, easier to use seas available for a lower price.
 

Victorious4

Senior Community Member
I'm glad to hear it worked for you, but I do not see it as a "scare tactic" at all -- it's a fact that this particular seat has an extremely short shell ... most kids DO outgrow it much sooner than other seats.
 

bobandjess99

Senior Community Member
My dd outgrew her comfortsport VERY quickly..I WISH someone had warned me..but, like so many others, i was clueless when it came to carseat...dh and i just went to the store and bought one...it was on sale! We just didn't know..wehich is SO OUTRAGEOUS, because we had researched all of the other pregncny/baby stuff to the MAX!!! We just didn't think...ugh! I feel like SUCH an idiot when ithink about it....
We had a comfortsport....and yes, my DD was "off the charts" LITERALLY, LOL!!! She was 20 pounds at 3.5 months old. yep. She was 31 pounds at 9 months, which is when we were told (given the 30 lb rf limit of the graco) we HAD to turn her FF. Then, by 2 yrs old, she outgrew it FF by height!

So..it was a crappy seat that gave us a whopping 9 months of RF, and an additional 15 months of FF...and was then useless.

stupid crummy seat......
 

abacus2

Well-known member
There's a big difference between helping parents choose the best seat (not typically the Triumph) and telling a parent they should throw out the seat they already have/can't return. Outgrowing a seat sooner than others is very different from outgrowing it before 12mon/20lbs. This seat will allow many children to RF well past 1 yr and FF to age 4 (something that certainly can't be said for the Comfort Sport). Anytime you throw out extreme examples, you run the risk of causing knee-jerk reactions rather than educated responses. Many parents have wasted a lot of money on car seats by not thinking through their decisions. I would like to see parents educated about the safest practices, and then determine whether their existing seat works for their child.
 

scatterbunny

New member
I just now saw this.

I don't consider it a scare tactic at all. A mother posted here within the last week that her 8-month old, barely-20-pound son was too tall to RF in the Triumph. I've also heard of a 9-month old who was too tall fairly recently. I believe Splash's son Charlie was also too tall to RF in the Triumph before a year old. It is a fact that lots of kids get too tall to RF in the Triumph at a very young age, many times at barely 20 pounds, sometimes before a year old.
 

Patriot201

Car-Seat.org Ambassador
There certainly are plenty of one-year-olds who can RF in the Triumph to a year or past a year, but it seems (based on my experience, at least) that those children are fairly long-legged instead of long-torsoed. Children with long torsos often outgrow the Triumph and the ComfortSport before a year of age. Like the other posters said, it is a fact that the Triumph and the ComfortSport have short shells, which explains why so many children outgrow the Triumph before a year of age or before they are truly ready to forward-face.

I don't think anyone was trying to use a "scare tactic." Very few (if any) of the regular posters on this board are going to say that the Triumph is a bad seat. They are just saying that there are usually "better" choices.

I feel pretty confident saying that the only time I have seen the regular posters try to scare a parent/caregiver is when there is total negligence occuring. Forward-facing a very young or very light child, using an inappropriate child restraint (i.e., putting a 6-month-old in a booster seat), ignoring recommendations (i.e., not installing a seat tightly in a vehicle), and other similar situations are all the type of situations in which a poster might try to "scare" a parent/caregiver. Otherwise, the regular posters usually do not participate in such behavior.
 

SusanMae

Senior Community Member
My goddaughter is 6 1/2 months old and rides RF in a MA.

That said a couple weeks ago we put her in a trimuph in TRU. She only had a couple inches above her head---maybe just a touch more than what she has in her Snugride. She's just over 15 pounds and of average length---with LONG legs. She wears a 6 month top and 9 month bottoms.

Just another point of view.

Susan
 

abacus2

Well-known member
"Scare tactic" is probably too harsh of a term; I just mean I think using significantly unusual examples does a disservice to parents. Maybe outgrowing a Triumph at 8 months by height isn't unusual; but it seems that way to me. I really don't mean to cause trouble; I agree that there are better choices than the Triumph, especially for long torsoed children.
 

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