New Carseat in town..........

[Marissa]

So there is a new carseat which I believe is exclusive to BRU at this point........don't know to much about it but it seems to have features very comparable to the Britax Marathon and a lot more affordable........ Check it out and see the review in Pink I posted below the link from a carseat mama from another board who went to try it out already..........

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3532433

Anyway i did a quick install on the BRU bench with both the MY RIDE & a marathon. not perfect installs but good enough to test them out.

james LOVED trying them out Rfing! LOL he still fit in both seats height wise!! approx the same amount of grow room over his head. about 1.5 maybe 2 inches at most to the top of the seat. so all of .5-1in before he reached the 1in rule. he's too heavy for the MA so he could have definitly used the MY RIDE. DH would have had a heartattack if i bought the MY RIDE for him to RF in. besides i'm perfectly ok with him FF now.

he had loads more leg room in the my ride vs the MA.

he was even with the next to top slots of the MY RIDE & a tiny bit over the next to top of the MA. he actually gains room RFing vs FF.

the seat in itself just seemed flimsier than britax seats. not saying if that is good or bad. noone really knows if some "give" is better or worse.

i was impressed & i prolly if i was int he market for a convertible i'd go for a MY RIDE i think. especially for james who was my chunkiest kid. besides the price is GREAT!!

[Kasey_Lynn]

Thats a nice one! I love the pink! [Do they make blue? lol]

[Marissa]

I am sure they have a boy cover also Kasey lol I have to do more research but it looks nice so far......

[Bridget :)]

very cute...they've got to compete with Britax and give better prices! Besides Britax being really safe, one of the big reasons I've bought 5 Britax seats is for the fabric and cushiness.

[Marissa]

Yeah Britax has the coolest covers for girls that is........not so much for boys....... I like Britax seats for their super easy installation, compared to other seats I have tried........I love the rear-facing lock offs on the MA that other seats don't have.......its so awesome you don't have to use that clip like on the EFTA or the Scenera.

[Jennifer]

Hmmmmm, I love the pink and brown, but we DO NOT need another carseat. :lol:
Marissa, do you know when Charlize will be too tall for her marathon? She only weighs 40lbs, so she has a long way to go on the weight, but I am not sure about the height.

[Marissa]

Charlize will be to big for the MA or any other FF seat when her shoulders are above the top harness slot or the top of her ears have made it past the shell of the carseat. So I think Charlize is safe in her MA for a while :-) Just check those two things and whichever comes first then its time..........

[Jennifer]

Awesome! Thanks Marissa! :)

[Raquel]

seriously if i had a girl in a carseat i'd buy it. i'm a sucker for pink and brown. i like it. its nice its a bit cheaper than the britax. we need another carseat just to have in dh's truck. but only need one as he doesnt take both boys.

[Marissa]

I need to make a deal with Jennifer to sell me her girl covers when her carseats expire in case I have a girl lol

[Raquel]

lol yes i'm gonna need that too. lol. they have such cute things for girls and i am DETERMINED to get a girl.

[Tracy]

I went to the Graco website. The pink print is a BRU exclusive, not just the seat. There is a purple one at Walmart. There is also a gray at Walmart and a brown they don't list a store so maybe the brown is everywhere? Wow that it RF up to 40lbs too. I know "they" are saying RFing longer is safer but heck, Sam who will be 4 in a month could still RF in that seat and well, thats just obnoxious to me. The only thing I'm really mad about is the price. WHY do cheaper seats come out AFTER I finally cave and get the expensive one?!?!

[Marissa]

It always happens Tracy, lol, I won't be buying this one we already have 4 carseats and my DH would kill me if I ever bought another one.........I would have to sell like my EFTA and Scenera in order to buy me this one lol........ I would not get rid of my MA's but since we have an extra seat now I wanted to donate it to my daycare just in case Gael ever needs to be picked up by someone other than me who does not have a carseat it will be there or for another kid who might need it..........I hope that never happens because I'd be so worried about proper installation..............anyways.........if not I'll give it to my brother and install it in one of his extra cars...... we shall see.

[Jennifer]

Marissa, I let my supervisor borrow our third marathon, since her grandson will be visiting for a few days from AZ. I just gave it to her, and told her the instruction manual was attatched. :lol:

[Marissa]

lol Jennifer!! but MA's are easy :-) Sceneras are so annoying to install correctly :lol:

[*Carrie*]

That is a nice looking carseat.

[Tracy]

You know, this would probably be a good seat for my mom's car. She doesn't have room now but when Sam hits 40lbs (or gets closer!) and has to move to a booster, she'd be able to fit this and 2 boosters. 2 carseats and Cameron's booster just don't fit well in her car. I'd probably have her go with the gray or brown though so that she could use it when my brother has a baby too. Odds are she'd never have my kids and my brother's at the same time (she couldn't fit 4 anyway) so she could use the seat with both kids if it was easy to adjust.

[Marissa]

lol Tracy I love carseats!! I never knew how much I would love them one day!!

[MunkyCrazy]

I like that. I guess I'll have to see if either the EFTA or that fits RF in our car.

[Marissa]

Yup you can always go to BRU and they will let you test the seat in your car, I think you just need your DL

[MunkyCrazy]

We went and checked it out today. They had an associate go out with us and it took 3 people saying they'd never heard of letting customers do that before we got an ok.

Anyway, it fit! Surprisingly. I had to have the seat up about half way, which wasn't too bad. My knees weren't hitting the dash board but I wonder how safe it would be for me then if the air bag deployed.

We didn't get it yet though. I still want to decide between that and another EFTA.

EFTA
Love the sliding harness straps
Love the knob tightening. LOVE. I didn't mess with the Graco one much so I don't know how easy that one is. I have the worst time tightening the straps on the Scenera though.
About $50 cheaper than the Graco (cheapest one I've found is $110 on albeebaby)
We have a spare cover set already. (and today I realized just how useful that is. RIGHT as we pulled into the parking lot Kyler blew chunks all over the place.)

Graco
Goes to 65lbs
Nice cup holders. The EFTA one is a flimsy pos.
Kyler seemed very comfy in it. Very plush. Although the EFTA seems very comfy too and I figure you have to remove the extra pads for ff anyway. Oh but the head pillow was a joke. That thing was a hideous and useless looking.

So that's about all I have right now. I would have liked to look it over a little more but Kyler was getting fussy and we were all hungry. By the time we ate I just didn't feel like going back.

[*Molly*]

Love the brown and pink!

[Marissa]

Wow 3 associates, they must have been new.........or something.......or just never had anyone ask before...........:lol: but people do it all the time "The ones that know" anyways is there anyways you can put the seat in the middle? Would it fit next to the other seat? I know the EFTA's are a bit wide.....but they might fit side by side just to save you some space on how up front you have to have the driver seat. Convertibles rear facing take less space than most infant seat rear facing........

Let us knwo what you end up doing.......

I love carseats :-)

[MunkyCrazy]

That's the thing, it will have to be flipped ff in December no matter what because of the infant carrier. There's no way it can go in the middle. It's fine for the passengers seat to be up but I can't drive it without the drivers seat being all the way back. My knees would hit the steering wheel. There's not enough room for it to fit between the seats so it ends up pushing both up.

I don't know what we were thinking buying this car. We know we need to trade it and have talked about getting a truck for him and minivan for me. That wouldn't happen until probably April at the earliest though when we get tax money back.I don't even know if we'll be able to unload this car for anything close to what we paid for it either.

http://carseatblog.com/?p=2312 I found this review last night saying the harness straps are hard to tighten. He had trouble installing ff. I figured it fitting rf would be the biggest problem and didn't even check it ff. I can see how it would be a problem though. The crazy natural recline mixed with our straighter seat backs would be a horrible combo. That thing was a beast too. It sits so high probably because of the deep bucket seat. DH saw it in the store before I did and said something about how huge it was. I took a closer look and told him that was the one I wanted to come see.

I also don't like the idea of having to uninstall it to change the harness height once it's ff. It would only need installed probably 4 times unless you have to undo the straps to get the cover off.

I'm definitely leaning toward getting another EFTA. I wish more seats had the sliding harness and knob tighteners. I still want to go to BRU and look at it in person again and this time try it out ff and try adjusting the belts and stuff. Hopefully today I'll come home with a new seat. If he can't stay rf past December then the longer limit on this rf won't matter. The ff would still be useful though. Too bad the Baby Depot and Target exclusive cover ones won't be out until next month.

[Marissa]

If I can find additional information for you I will post it, otherwise you have to do what you have to do..........I know the Accents are quite small cars, I don't even know anyone with one that I can even try it out with.

[MunkyCrazy]

I had a few extra questions about the EFTA that I couldn't find online so I ended up calling their customer service.

Graco MyRide 65

Rear facing 5-40 lbs
Forward facing 20-65 lbs
Maximum height 49 inches
Top shoulder slot height 17 inches


Evenflo Triumph Advance

Rear facing 5-35 lbs
Forward facing 20-50 lbs
Maximum height 50 inches
Top shoulder slot height 17 inches

So between them, the extra weight on the Graco probably isn't going to affect the length of time we'd use it ff anyway.

Not being able to remove/replace the straps on the EFTA would suck if we had another barf fest like yesterday. I'd probably have to go in with q-tips to try and clean all the little slats by the harness. It's probably going to come down to taking them both out and putting them in rf and ff and seeing which fits best. That and seeing how hard the harness on the Graco is hard to adjust. Hopefully I come home with a new one today. If we use the 15 or 20% off coupons there it'll be worth it to just get the EFTA there instead of ordering from Albeebaby anyway.

[MunkyCrazy]

I got the EFTA. I chose the Sandbox cover so it was nearly the same price as the Graco. However I tried the Graco RF in our car again because as I was looking at it in the store and playing around with it I realized that we didn't have it in the recline position yesterday. The thing has such a crazy natural recline it I didn't even notice.

The loose cover didn't seem to be as bad as some of the reviews I saw. It does have elastic at the parts where it was shown popping off and you could put it back but there wasn't much extra fabric and it would probably just pop right back out with pressure and movement. The recline feet seemed fine to me, too. I just couldn't even straighten my legs with as far up that my seat had to be with it in the proper recline position.

I had to rethread it to take the infant pad off and to put it at the proper slot height to check Kyler in it. It wasn't overly hard to tighten. I'd probably buy the carseat if it fit in our car, especially once the other Baby Depot and Target covers come out. I want to see the blue one.

This is the cover I got. The other was $20 cheaper but I really didn't like the fake pleathery looking holey parts of the fabric. Oooogly.
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3028985

On a side note, there were 2 new BRU reviews on the Graco posted yesterday and they were 1 and 2 stars. I didn't think it was THAT bad but I didn't actually install it.

Thanks for your help Melissa!

[Marissa]

Thats a cute cover I have seen it in person :-) Glad you found something that works for you and your car. I don't deal on an everyday with teh EFTA because my parents are the ones that have that seat. Let us know how it keep working out for you.

[4BlueBlessings]

i like that seat... we have a 1/2 bench in the back of the durrango so only certain seats work. We actually tested like a million with the car seat person at our babies r us. the Evenflo Titan was the only one that worked wiht ours

[Heavenly]

Wow directly from the graco website is 10 dollars cheaper then from toys r us

[makysmama]

I wish I had seen this a month ago. We just bought Makynzi another one but it goes 5 point for 65 lbs as well just was more expensive. Here it is (http://www.target.com/Graco-Nautilus-3-Car-Seat/dp/B0011URFRE/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&frombrowse=0&searchView=grid5&node=1038576&keywords=carseat&field_browse=1038576&searchSize=30&id=Graco%20Nautilus%203-%20Car%20Seat&field_availability=-2&searchBinNameList=subjectbin%2Ctarget_com_age%2Cta rget_com_gender-bin%2Ctarget_com_character-bin%2Cprice%2Ctarget_com_primary_color-bin%2Ctarget_com_size-bin%2Ctarget_com_brand-bin&refinementHistory=subjectbin%2Cprice%2Ctarget_com_ age%2Ctarget_com_gender-bin%2Ctarget_com_character-bin%2Ctarget_com_primary_color-bin%2Ctarget_com_size-bin%2Ctarget_com_brand-bin&field_price=10000-19999&searchNodeID=1038576&field_launch-date=-1y&searchRank=relevancerank&field_subjectbin=1038590&searchPage=1&field_keywords=carseat&pf_rd_r=07J00XPMSYBGF0S5WFSA&pf_rd_m=A1VC38T7YXB528&pf_rd_t=301&pf_rd_i=0&pf_rd_p=489944911&pf_rd_s=center-3)