It’s no secret that I’m a fan of a number of Graco car seats, including the 4Ever, Milestone, and Size4Me 65. The last seat, in particular, might be my favorite car seat of all time, simply because of how good of a deal it is as a way to keep kids rear-facing for a long, long time. Sure, the Fllo will give you more time by weight, but it costs twice as much. The Size4Me, however, is easily the best convertible under $200. It also comes in a number of clones, including the My Size 65. What I’m most interested in, however, is its slightly higher end twin, the Head Wise 70 (and its clone, the Size4Me 70). This review is about the Head Wise 70 and why it’s my “take anywhere” seat.

2015 Graco Head Wise 70 – What’s the big deal?

The Graco Head Wise 70 comes with what Graco describes as “Safety Surround” technology, which is what makes the biggest difference between it and, say, the Size4Me 65. The technology is designed to increase levels of side impact protection if the seat is involved in a collision. Given how quickly side impact crashes can turn fatal, if I’ve got a way to buy additional coverage, I’m going to do it.

Besides that, the Head Wise 70 is a convertible seat with a generous amount of head room (hence the name? ha!) for rear-facing, which means children can stay rear-facing longer in the seat. It’s a convertible seat, which basically means it works in both rear-facing configurations and forward-facing configurations, and it also fits children from birth, which means that you can buy the Head Wise 70 from Target, install it in your vehicle of choice, and use it to take your newborn baby right out of the hospital. And as your precious one grows, s/he will be able to continue using this seat for another 7 years, receiving excellent protection every step of the way.

That, to me, is a pretty big deal.

Graco Head Wise 70 Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 4 to 40 pounds. You’ll want to max out all 40 pounds before forward-facing, as that will provide your child with the greatest amount of safety in a car collision. There is a 1″ rule that states that your child’s head needs to stay below 1″ of the head rest when the head rest is extended to its maximum position. Because the shell height is close to 28″ tall, virtually every child on Earth will be able to reach 40 pounds in weight before outgrowing the seat rear-facing by height. That is awesome.

Forward-facing: 20 to 70 pounds. There is a 52″ height limit for children when forward-facing. The minimum age for forward-facing is 1. Of course, readers of The Car Crash Detective aren’t going to forward-face at 1; we’re going to aim for delaying forward-facing as long as the seat will allow us, and then forward-facing as long as possible. The fact that we receive 5 extra pounds to forward-face in with the Head Wise 70 means there’s a bit more forward-facing time built into the seat than there is in the Size4Me, which is another reason I love the Head Wise 70.

Buy the Graco Head Wise 70 on Sale at Amazon here.

Dimensions of the Graco Head Wise 70

The shell width is 18.5″, the height of the seat is around 23.5″, and the depth, or length, is just about 22.” There is a 7 year lifespan for the seat and the harness height ranges from 7″ if the included infant insert is used all the way to 17.5″ on the top end.

Using the Graco Head Wise 70

One of my favorite things about the Head Wise 70 is how easy it is to use with newborns. Generally, convertibles marketed with minimum weights of 5 pounds may fit average-sized newborns, but they might need a bit of additional padding to do so well. However, only seats that are rated for 4 pounds or below can be expected to do a good job with regular newborns, preemies and smaller-than-average newborns. The Head Wise 70 does a great job with all three, and I love it for that.

I like the presence of Graco’s InRight LATCH system. That’s a fancy name for their LATCH connectors that are designed to be easy to install by being push-in connectors. They’re nicer than the basic hook-style LATCH system you find on cheaper car seats. I also like that a pair of LATCH connectors are included for rear-facing and another pair are included for forward-facing, as it means you don’t need to reroute your straps when you plan to switch the direction of the seat. There are built-in attachment points for storing the connectors when you aren’t using them. The weight limit for the LATCH system is 48 pounds.

The no-rethread harness present in the Head Wise 70 is another part of the seat I love. There are a number of car seats out there, particularly in the budget range, that make you rethread your harness straps whenever you need to raise or lower your harness height. In the Head Wise, you have a bar in the top front part of the seat that you can adjust with one hand. There are 8 positions to choose from, ranging from 8″ to 17.5″ at the top of the shell in terms of seated torso height. If you use the infant body support, the lowest harness setting drops to 7.”

There is a built in level indicator in the side of the Head Wise 70 that lets you make sure you’ve got the correct recline set up. It’s a ball level indicator, which is much more obvious than lines or obtuse markings that resemble hieroglyphics.

Since we’re on the topic of reclines, something else I like is the fact that there’s a lever in the front to let you adjust your recline in 3 positions; one setting is for rear-facing while the other two are for forward-facing. The rear-facing recline is marked brightly in blue while the forward-facing reclines are marked in orange. The upright settings are for 20-40 pounds and 20-70 pound children. I personally found the recline a bit hard to adjust by hand, but with a bit of force it moves.

Maintenance-wise, the pads on the seat are machine-washable as long as the wash is with cold water on the delicate cycle. Bleach should not be used.

Buy the Graco Head Wise 70 on Sale at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Graco Head Wise 70?

Now we’re on to the real reason I write any car seat review–why exactly is the seat a good idea to have? Yes, I like the ball recline and so on, but the real reasons, in my opinion, to pick up the Graco Head Wise 70 are because it lets you rear-face to 40 pounds by weight and gives you the room in height to actually reach 40 pounds. First of all, the vast majority of kids in the US are turned forward-facing much too early. Part of this is because parents don’t know better, but part of it is simply because many seats run out of height room too quickly.

Because there’s a generous amount of headroom in the Head Wise 70, the likelihood of pretty much every child reaching the 40 pound rear-facing limit is very high. And rear-facing is absolutely safer than forward-facing, which is why the Swedes, who have the best child safety record in the world, don’t forward-face their kids until they turn 4. Let’s learn from the folks who use best practices.

Keep in mind that there are several seats that will let you rear-face beyond 40 pounds. However, 40 is much better than 35 or 30 pounds, which are your limits in the vast majority of infant seats on the market. And the Head Wise 70 offers the advantage of greater side impact protection and a higher forward-facing weight limit than the Size4Me.

Overall, the Graco Head Wise 70 is a quality, well-thought out seat that offers parents the opportunity to practice extended rear-facing without breaking the bank. If you can choose between it and the Size4Me, I’d choose the Head Wise 70. You can buy the Head Wise 70 here in Marok, Lowell, or Cora.

Unfortunately, it’s not yet available in Canada, but Canadians can buy a similar seat, the Boulevard ClickTight, here.

If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

Jané is a company that’s been making car seats for a number of years, particularly in Europe, where they have an extensive line of seats. One of these seats is the Montecarlo R1, which they recently decided would be a good seat to present in the United States. As a fan of many things European, including sustainable approaches to car safety, I was eager to see what Jané had to offer with the R1. Picking up a copy of the R1 from Amazon made this possible this week, and here are my thoughts on the seat.

2015 Jané Montecarlo R1 – What’s the big deal?

The Jané Montecarlo R1 was recently awarded a very high score in its booster category when examined by Eurotest, a car seat safety rating system popular in Europe. We don’t have anything similar in the US, as all seats here are essentially rated Pass/Fail, which blinds parents to what are actually the safest car seats on the market (e.g., seats like the Fllo, Foonf, Rainier, and Pacifica). However, that’s for another article. The take home point is that the seat has already received special attention for its attention to detail in side impact safety, which is huge, given how deadly side impacts are.

The Jané Montecarlo R1 is a booster seat, which means that it’s designed to be used forward-facing with a seat belt to help children who are no longer in forward-facing harnesses sit safely until they’re ready for an adult seat belt. It’s only a high back booster, which means a backless booster mode is not included. As I’m not a fan of backless boosters in general when compared to high back boosters, I don’t mind the lack of a backless mode here at all.

Buy the Montecarlo R1 on Sale at Amazon here.

Montecarlo R1 Limits for Weight and Height

Booster: 30 to 100 pounds. Children must be shorter than 57″ in height. Of course, as a reader of The Car Crash Detective, you’re not going to put a 30 pound child in a booster, or any child under the age of 5, ideally, since they won’t be ready physiologically or psychologically for it. In the manual, Jané specifies that the seat can be used for children up to 12 years old, which is great! However, it also has a minimum age of 1.5, which is batty, as children should be rear-facing at least until the age of 4 to follow best practices, as is the case in Sweden.

The seat has a 7 year lifespan before it needs to be replaced. The highest position for the belt guide is 20″, which isn’t as high as that found in the best boosters and combination seats on the market, such as the Frontier 90 and Pinnacle 90, but it’s off to a very good start, and it’s better than a number of other boosters on the market.

Using the Jané Montecarlo R1

The first thing I noticed about the R1 was the presence of rigid lower LATCH connectors. I like these because they allow you keep a booster permanently anchored in the vehicle, whether or not it’s buckled in. If you don’t have a booster buckled in or LATCHed in, it turns into a projectile in a collision, just the way an unbelted human does, which can lead to deadly injuries within the vehicle that are 100% preventable. The LATCH anchors don’t add to the safety of the booster when it’s being used, but they make a big difference when it isn’t.

I’m also a fan of the head and back supports, as they come with aluminum on the inside, lending them stability without adding on unnecessary pounds. There are five positions to choose from in the head rest, and three to choose from in the arm rests. Use the highest arm rest setting to make buckling the seat belt a quicker process.

Something I love about the R1 is the fact that the head and torso supports come with energy absorbing foam; the foam is designed to soak up some of the forces in a collision, preventing them from entering the child. Force mitigation is the name of the game in car safety, whether with car seats, cars, or barriers to protect cars, pedestrians, or anyone else on the road, so the more foam the better.

The head wings on the R1 are adjustable and can be moved inward or outward to provide closer or farther contact with the head. This was a feature my oldest daughter was quite pleased with, as it allowed her to turn the side wings into pillows that she found comfortable on long car trips. If it works, I’m not going to argue with it.

Buy the Montecarlo R1 on Sale at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Jané Montecarlo R1?

For me, the most important part of a car seat review isn’t how the seat looks, although aesthetics do matter, but how functional the seat is in its primary job of keeping kids safe. When it comes to booster seats, safety comes in seating abilities. We want children to spend as much time as possible rear-facing before forward-facing, and we want them to spend as much time forward-facing as possible before boostering. Finally, once we’re boostering, we want them to booster as long as it takes until they can sit with a well-fitting adult seat belt.

The value of a booster seat for me, then, is in how well it allows parents to achieve these objectives. Because the decent shoulder height range and good weight ranges for the R1, it should enable children to use it as a booster for several years, although it is unlikely to be the last booster seat a child ever needs. If you’re looking for a seat that can check that box, you’re looking for a seat like the the Frontier 90 and Pinnacle 90.

That said, I recommend the Jané Montecarlo R1 as a stylish and comfortable car seat that is a good choice for parents invested in safety and quality in a high back booster. You can buy the Jané Montecarlo R1 here in Yale and Flame. Canadians can buy it here.

If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

Evenflo has been selling various versions of its Triumph convertible for a number of years. It’s a good budget convertible seat that can meet the needs of a number of parents without breaking the budget. The seat can be installed easily, used correctly, and is comfortable for children. As a result, when I had the opportunity to borrow one for a weekend from a friend, I decided it was well worth reviewing as a budget option.

Evenflo Triumph LX – What’s the big deal?

The Evenflo Triumph LX is a good example of a low-priced convertible seat. Being a convertible seat means that the seat can be used in both rear-facing and forward-facing configurations, which means it can be used straight from the hospital until several years later. The Evenflo Triumph is available from several stores, including at Target, where an exclusive “Procomfort” version is sold, and at Amazon, where the regular, and just as good, LX version is sold. A quick way to tell the newest versions of the Evenflo Triumph from older versions is that the newest all come with a pair of cup holders on each armrest, as you can see in the two print patterns of the seat.

Buy the Evenflo Triumph LX on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Evenflo Triumph LX Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 5 to 40 pounds. Children should be between 19″ and 37″ tall and the tops of their heads must not be within 1″ of the top of the car seat.

Forward-facing: 22 to 65 pounds. Children should be between 28″ and 50″ tall and at least 1 year old. Being a fan of the Car Crash Detective, however, you know that we’re not going to stop at the minimum limits required by the law, but will aim for best practices as they’re shown in Sweden, where parents rear-face until age 4, or at least for as long as possible. As a result, very few children die from car collisions in Sweden.

Dimensions of the Evenflo Triumph LX

The Evenflo Triumph has harness heights that range from 7″ at the lower end to 16″ at the higher end. There are two crotch strap positions to choose from at 7″ and at 9″, while the seat weighs 18 pounds according to my fancy car seat scale and is 20″ wide at its widest point and 23″ tall on the inside. The base itself is narrower at 15.”

Using the Evenflo Triumph LX

Installing the Triumph is rather straightforward; the LATCH lower anchor connectors are the typical hook kind. As with most seats, the tether strap is meant to be attached to a tether anchor only when the seat is used in a forward-facing configuration. Remember that it’s always a good idea to use the tether while forward-facing.

The LATCH limits for the seat are 45 pounds by child weight. At that point, you’ll need to stop using LATCH and start using the seat belt. This is a big part of why I prefer using seat belt installations from the start; it gets rid of the need to switch back and forth with LATCH, and it also gives you more room for 3 across installations.

The seat belt installation is also relatively simple, but since there isn’t a device in the car seat to lockoff the seatbelt, your seat belt will need to be a belt that locks. Every vehicle made after 1996 has a locking seat belt, so if you have a car made in the last 18 years, you won’t need to worry about this. If you’re not sure how to lock your seat belt, send me an email and I’ll be glad to help you.

Recline positions in the Triumph and Front-to-back spacing

There are 3 recline positions to choose from on the base. When the seat is used  while rear-facing, the 1st recline position, which is the full recline, must be used. There is an indicator of your recline indicator in the shell beneath the rear-facing beltpath opening. I don’t like it much because it’s hard to see, but it’s there. You can use a rolled up towel to help you get an appropriate recline if you can’t do it normally with your seat.

The second and third (semi and fully-upright) recline positions are available for forward-facing, but you’ll want to make up your mind in advance, as you’ll need to reinstall the seat in order to choose between the positions.

The Triumph fits nicely front-to-back in vehicles, which means that parents won’t need to move their front seats up clown-car style in order to make room for the seat. It’s a bit wider than some seats, which might make things a bit more tricky for 3 across installations, but you can always check the 3 across guide here to learn about the kinds of seats that are guaranteed to fit well in your vehicle.

Newborns who are average-sized should not have trouble fitting in the seat from day one, which means you’ll be able to take it with you from the hospital. I’m not a fan of the 37″ rear-facing height limit, as that limits a 50th percentile child to 3 years in the seat per CDC growth charts. If you ignore the height limit and just use the 1″ rule, which is what I do when using a seat, then you can get significantly more time in the seat, as long as you observe the 40 pound limit, which I never break. When forward-facing, the seat’s limits are more reasonable, as 50″ in height leaves more room for children. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the vast majority of kids are going to reach the height limit of the seat before they reach the weight limit at 65 pounds.

Maintenance on the Triumph is rather straightforward; the cover can be removed easily and can be machine washed in the delicate cycle in cold water. It should be tumble dried for only 10 minutes on low heat and promptly removed.

Buy the Evenflo Triumph LX on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Why buy the Evenflo Triumph LX?

We could spend all day talking about machine wash settings, but what are the real reasons to buy a seat like the Evenflo Triumph? For me, the real reasons center around how it allows you to rear-face until your child weighs 40 pounds, which is huge in the United States, since we forward-face our children too early as a rule. In contrast, the longer we can rear-face, the safer our children are, and seats with higher weight and height limits allow us to spend more time rear-facing, which is safer.

For a blueprint on best practices, look to Sweden, where the standard is to rear-face until 4. As a result, children are much safer when riding in cars there, as they’re more likely to be protected by being in the rear-facing position, which is the safest position for children (and adults!).  A seat like the Triumph lets you rear-face until 40 pounds, which will get children to at least 3 and perhaps longer. Keep in mind, though, that there are many seats that will let you rear-face past 40 pounds.

Other factors that I like about the Triumph is that the installation can be achieved rather simply in the majority of vehicles, and that it doesn’t take up much space in front-to-back installations. I also like how well it fits average-sized newborns, and that it’s FAA certified for airplane use. I also like that it’s made locally in the United States, which uses fewer resources. I wish it had longer than a 6 year product life and I wish that it had a higher rear-facing height limit; 37″ is a disservice both to the seat and to the children who will be sitting in it.

All that said, I think the Evenflo Triumph is a great budget car seat for parents who are interested in keeping their children safe without having to spend a ton of money or break out the credit cards. I recommend the Evenflo Triumph LX heartily. You can buy it in multiple colors here. Canadians can buy it here.

If you find my information on best practices in car and car seat safety helpful, you can do your shopping through this Amazon link. Canadians can shop here for Canadian purchases. Have a question or want to discuss best practices? Join us in the forums!