seat expiring, wwyd

[lotsolove]

my daughter is almost 6 38 lbs. She rides in a sunshine kids radian with a date of 02-2006. so is her seat expired now or not till the end of the year? she has some special needs and rides in a booster for 2 minute trips to the bus etc, but needs a harness. I really like skr but dont need another convertible seat since she is the last. we have an evenflo maestro as a second seat but hate the harness i know its been recalled but even new the clip was almost impossible to open.
if we can use the skr till the end of the year it would be great! send me some good news

lotsolove

 

[veggiegirl228]

my daughter is almost 6 38 lbs. She rides in a sunshine kids radian with a date of 02-2006. so is her seat expired now or not till the end of the year? she has some special needs and rides in a booster for 2 minute trips to the bus etc, but needs a harness. I really like skr but dont need another convertible seat since she is the last. we have an evenflo maestro as a second seat but hate the harness i know its been recalled but even new the clip was almost impossible to open.
if we can use the skr till the end of the year it would be great! send me some good news

lotsolove

I heard it's good for 8 yrs from the DOM. So yes it is expired as of Feb 2014

 

[lotsolove]

so it is expired, what next? Husband says price is no object. If we had kept the skr, I was getting ready to move it to the top slots. I like the narrowness of it so that when I have 3 kids in the back seat my dd in the middle 9 no booster, is not cramped. since she is special needs we are thinking to last for at least another 4 years. easy enough latch that she can do and undo it herself. she could do the skr but not the evenflo maestro. I guess I need a new seat asap!

thanks
lotsolove

 

[ahgirls]

What about the harmony defender? It is a narrow harness. What type of special needs does your dd have, if you don't mind sharing? That might help us come up with a better seat choice.

 

[lotsolove]

she has a vegetable soup of diagnosis, she is not mature enough to sit in a booster and for everyone to be safe she must be harnessed. If she has a meltdown she will attack whoever she can reach including the driver so a booster is out of the question. are the newer britaxes more narrow?

 

[ahgirls]

The Britax combination seats are wide. We had a Frontier 85 until my dd outgrew it. I have since gotten a special needs seat for her. My dd doesn't have the core strength to use a booster for longer then a 30 minutes. Also as you know during a meltdown anything can happen.

 

[1mommy]

I know you said you didn't want a convertible since she is your last child, but an Evenflo Sureride will probably be your best bet but you might run into the same problem with her being unable to unbuckle herself. It is fairly narrow, has very high top harness slots for forward facing and is around $100 and will harness to 65 pounds. If you think she will outgrow the harness by weight before height, the Britax Frontier 90 and the Britax Pioneer 70 are two that I would look at. You could also try and find an older Britax Frontier 85 (with the number after each seat bring the weight it will harness to).

 

[lotsolove]

we will need the height before weight. I was looking at a britax 70? I definitely want harness height because with her needs I want it to last. I really appreciate all the advice. seems like car seats change so quickly that without you guys there would be no keeping up!
lotsolove

 

[1mommy]

The Radian has a highest harness height of 17.5, the Britax Pioneer 70 has a harness height of 19.5, the Britax Frontier/Pioneer 90 has a harness height of 20.5, and the Evenflo Sureride has a harness height of 19.5, but it has been said that due to the angle that it is installed at you "magically" gain more growing room- please see this thread for details.

http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=254419

In the thread I linked above Jeni-GAcpst says that her daughter gained about 3 more inches of growing room over the Frontier 85 which has the same highest harness height of 19.5.

Please note that a general rule of thumb is that 1 inch of torso growth takes 1 year.