Diono has been in the business of making high quality car seats for decades, and I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing some of the safest seats available for children in this country, including the Diono Radian RXT, which directly inspired the Rainier. This review focuses on the Diono Rainier, one of 8 car seats currently available in the US market with the capability of rear-facing children from birth until 50 pounds (the full list includes the Clek Fllo, the Clek Foonf, the Diono Rainier, the Graco Extend2Fit, the Graco Extend2Fit 3-in-1, the Graco 4Ever Extend2Fit, the Nuna Rava, the Safety 1st Advance EX 65 Air+, and the Safety 1st Grow and Go EX Air.).

2020 update: The Rainer has now been updated as the Rainier 2AX. It’s basically the same seat with new colors, and still offers the same 50-pound rear-facing goodness!

2018 update: The Rainier, as well as all other Diono convertibles, were recalled in late 2017 by Diono and new versions were released addressing a potential safety issue involving top tethers. Every seat manufactured from October 2017 onward has been modified to resolve the issue, and the seat continues to be a high-value option for safety-conscious parents.

The Rainier is still basically the same seat since its release; weight and height limits haven’t changed, although fabrics have been tweaked slightly. It’s still one of the best seats on the market for extended rear-facing.

Diono Rainier – What’s the big deal?

The Diono Rainier continues a tradition of narrow, high-weight car seats that makes this one of the most impressive seats on the market. It’s a convertible car seat, which means it can be used in several configurations, including as a rear-facing infant seat, a forward-facing seat, and of course, as a booster. Released in May 2014 alongside its high weight sibling the (now discontinued) Pacifica, the Rainier is a car seat that should be on every parent’s shopping list.

Diono Rainier Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 5-50 pounds, and up to 44″ in height. Your child’s head should not reach past 1.5″ below the top of the headrest. I measure the shell height at 25″ again, which is consistent with previous Dionos and which makes sense since the general height limit by Diono remains unchanged from that of previous models.

Forward-facing: 20-90 pounds, and up to 57″ in height. Your child should be at least 1, and it’s recommended that s/he is at least 2. Of course, research into car safety indicates children should remain rear-facing for as long as possible (the average is 4 years in Sweden, which posts the lowest child fatality rate on Earth), and after rear-facing, the child should remain forward-facing as long as possible.

Booster mode: 50-120 pounds, and up to 57″ in height. As with the previous Radian line, the shoulders of the child must at least reach the 4th pair of harness slots. Remember that children should remain in booster seats until their seat belts fit them over the shoulder, across the chest, and flat on the upper thighs. This is summarized nicely here in the guide to the 5 step test.

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Dimensions of the Diono Rainier

The seat is 18.5″ wide at its widest point, which is at the shoulders. Keep in mind that this might make puzzling more difficult for 3 across installations with other tall seats. The seat weighs 25 pounds. Inside, it is around 14″ wide at the widest upper portion at the shoulders and slightly larger at the thighs.

Using the Diono Rainier

The seat arrives folded nicely in a box that seems well designed for it, which makes sense when one considers that the seat takes up almost exactly the same amount of space as its ancestor, the Radian RXT. I was getting ready for a difficult installation, but it turns out that Diono has worked to simplify the process, which was a welcome surprise. The full manual is available from Diono here.

LATCH and Seat Belt Installations

You might need to adjust the straps out of the box, but the learning curve is gentle. Depending on the size of your child, you might keep or remove the harness pads. Keep in mind that you cannot install it in the center of your vehicle with a LATCH set up unless you have dedicated LATCH hookups there; this is common to almost every car seat on the market today in the United States. This means you’ll need to use a seat belt installation along with a locking clip for a middle seat install, and this might be a bit troublesome. Also remember that you should not use the LATCH system at all if your child weighs more than 35 pounds when rear-facing or more than 40 pounds when forward-facing. Personally, I prefer the seat belt install anyway, as it gives a lot more space for 3 across installations. Also note that when you’re forward-facing and past 40 pounds, you should also use a tether if you have an anchor available.

Harness Adjustments Require Rethreading

There are 5 shoulder harness positions that range from 9″ on the low end to 17.5″ on the high end. The recline base must be used when the seat is in a rear-facing position. Because there are 5 different slots for harness height, most children are going to find a position that fits them comfortably for as long as they use the seat. You adjust the harness height from behind the seat by removing straps from the splitting plate and rethreading them into the desired slot. If your child is rear-facing, the slots need to be at or below the shoulders, while they need to be above for forward-facing. Diono is unique in that they do allow you to have forward-facing children with shoulders above the top shoulder harness slots as long as these children stay within the forward-facing weight limit and have the tops of their ears below the top of the car seat.

Use the Angle Adjuster to Reduce Front-to-Back Space

There is an angle adjuster that is frequently sold alongside the Diono line, as it helps cut down on the extremely large amount of space that the seat can take up when used in the rear-facing configuration. Depending on the size of your vehicle and the amount of space you need in the front seats, you may want to consider purchasing this. This is likely to be the case if you set the seat up directly behind the passenger or driver seats in the first row. Diono used to state that a child needed to be at least one year old before s/he could use it, but they recently relaxed this requirement and stated that a child simply needs to be able to sit up unassisted and have complete head control. Of course, it’s only meant for rear-facing, but it really does make the seat take up a lot less space; typically between 4 and 7 inches in my experience front to back. Perhaps more importantly for most parents, it can give you many more inches of leg room when sitting in the front.

The Diono Rainier has a Low Profile

The seat itself takes up a low profile, the way previous Diono seats do, although the sides of the seat flare out in a more dramatic way than with previous Diono seats like the Radian RXT. That said, it looks rather large in most vehicles, to be honest. The low side walls make it easier to put children in and take them out of the seat, but it’s not as easy as with the older Dionos, which were truly low profile seats. Preschool-aged children should be able to climb into and out of the seat on their own, even while rear-facing.

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Why Buy the Diono Rainier?

This is the meat and potatoes of this car seat. The Rainier is one of a handful of seats in the United States that allow you to rear-face a child for up to 50 pounds. Every pound is precious, as the longer you rear-face, the safer your child is. In the US, parents tend to turn their children around into the line of fire at 1. In Sweden, this typically isn’t done until 4. Children in Sweden are far less likely to die in car crashes than children in the US. It makes that much of a difference. This alone is reason enough to buy the Rainier.

Besides that fact, the Rainier also includes a steel frame and an aluminum reinforced headrest for reinforced head support, in addition to EPS foam around the child’s head and body to increase levels of side impact protection. The sidewalls are also deeper than in previous Diono models, including its Pacifica sibling, to increase side protection. All of these are good things.

Something that sets the Rainier (and the Pacifica) apart from every other car seat is that they have the largest forward-facing capacity of any 5-point harness car seat currently sold in the United States at 20-90 pounds with up to 57″ of height. Each transition in child seats signifies a decrease in safety (e.g., rear-facing is safer than forward-facing, which is safer than a booster position, which is safer than simply using a seat belt); the longer you can keep a child forward-facing in a harness, the better. The Rainier now leads the field here.

It’s taxi, Uber, and vacation friendly due to its narrowness and collapsability

Something else that’s neat about the Rainier is that it’s one of only a handful of seats in the United States that can currently be tethered while rear-facing as well as while forward-facing. It isn’t required to rear-face tether, but rear-facing tethering does have its advantages, which I discuss here. It’s also FAA approved and can be folded down to the size and profile of a large backpack, making it easy to transport in a portable package (say, when traveling or when going to the airport). This can prevent you from being tempted to rent car seats while on vacation or travel in taxis and Ubers without car seats (two bad ideas).

Finally, the Rainier is also simply an easier seat to install than most, due to its narrow base width of 17 inches. That means it’s actually possible to install 3 across in a number of mid-sized vehicles. I also like the fact that it has a 12-year usable life when used as a booster seat (remember, car seats do expire eventually), which is the longest in the industry right now, although I wish the harness lifespan were longer than 8 years.

The Rainier is an excellent car seat and, in my opinion, one of the eight best currently available in the United States for children between zero and five.  You can buy the Diono Rainier 2AX in a range of colors here. Canadians can buy the Rainier here.

The Clek Foonf and the Clek Fllo, which is the cheaper sibling of the Foonf, are two of the most impressive car seats sold in the United States. These are my thoughts on the Foonf, and why it’s easily one of the best car seats you can consider today. In short, it lets you rear-face longer than nearly every other car seat in the country, and rear-facing is the safest position you can put your child in. Let’s dig into the details together!

2018 Update: Clek has changed the colors, as they do every year, but the fundamentals of the seat–rear- and forward-facing weight and height limits–remain unchanged. It’s still one of the best options for extended rear-facing available in the US and Canada.

Clek Foonf – What’s a Foonf?

The Clek Foonf sounds like something between a baby sneeze and a Swedish dessert, but the truth is that this is one of the most impressive seats on the market. It’s a convertible car seat, which means it can be used in two configurations, including as a rear-facing infant seat, and as a forward-facing seat. It’s the newest version of the Foonf, which is rather similar to the previous 2015 version, except that the harness straps fit better and a few behind the scenes changes were made by Clek in order to improve the seat.

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Clek Foonf Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 14-50 pounds (unless you use the infant thingy insert, which cuts the lower limit to 5 pounds), and 25-43″ in height. Your child should be able to sit upright without assistance, which typically isn’t reached by most infants until after 6 months, and his or her head should not reach past 1″ below the top of the headrest. The Foonf is one of the best seats for making sure kids actually reach the useful limits of the seat, as it measures around 26.5″ in shell height when the headrest is extended to its fullest position. Most seats top out at 23″ or 24″ in shoulder height, which means a lot of children will outgrow them by height before doing so by weight. Clek took note of this and made sure to provide a usable height range throughout the weight range of the seat.

Note: Using the Clek Infant-thingy infant insert reduces the rear-facing weight limit to 5 pounds and overrides the need for your infant to be able to sit upright without assistance.

Forward-facing: 20-65 pounds, and 30-49″ in height. Your child should be at least 1, and it’s recommended that s/he is at least 2. Of course, research into car safety indicates children should remain rear-facing for as long as possible (the average is 4 years in Sweden, which posts the lowest child fatality rate on Earth), and after rear-facing, the child should remain forward-facing as long as possible. The Norwegians have also caught onto this, and they’re also enjoying record low death rates for children due to auto traffic due to extended rear-facing.

Dimensions of the Clek Foonf

The seat is 17″ wide at its widest point and only 13″ wide where installed at the base. The seat weighs 38 pounds when rear-facing, as this includes the base for rear-facing as well as the anti-rebound bar; it weighs 33 pounds when installed forward-facing.

Using the Clek Foonf

I’m going to be honest: the Foonf is a bit of an intimidating seat when you take it out of the box, partially because you need to spend a few minutes putting it together and partially because it looks even larger once you have it set up in a car. It reminds me a lot of an ejection seat; the kind a fighter pilot would wear, except with much cooler colors. However, that also makes it look solid, and it feels solid too, which shouldn’t matter in car safety, but it’s a nice psychological boost that makes it easier to stand paying as much as one of these can cost.

Something I like about the Foonf is the height it gives children when rear-facing; in most cases, it will allow them to look out the rear window, which is handy for entertaining children while on the road. The seat itself might not look very comfortable, but when you touch it and put weight in it, it’s quite comfortable. It’s also easy to clean if you spill regular liquids on it, which is inevitable sooner or later.

When it comes to the installation, remember that you need to install it with the anti-rebound bar while rear-facing, and that you should use the tether only when forward-facing. The anti-rebound bar, as its name suggests, is designed to reduce the rebound, or rotational motion, of the seat during a collision, absorbing energy that would otherwise go into the child. The more forces you can reduce in a crash, the better, and Clek even includes a neat little video of their seat being crash tested in a side impact.

Keep in mind that when you’re forward-facing with the Foonf, Clek recommends you use the tether all the time. You shouldn’t ever use it while rear-facing. When forward-facing, you are required to use the tether if you have the seat set in Recline 1. Besides that, Clek states it’s okay to skip it if you’re using a seat belt installation and there isn’t an available tether anchor.

Something else I like about the Foonf is that it’s a plush, plush seat. I can’t fit into it, but children who can tend to like it. I’ve consulted with many parents who own them, and most agree that their kids don’t mind sitting in it. Of course, this will vary from one child to the next, but it’s something I’ve seen and heard mentioned several times. However, I’ll definitely acknowledge that it’s a seat that some kids just don’t work well with; the foam might vary from one seat to the next.

Furthermore, since the Foonf sits very high, it’s easy to get to the harnesses and buckles it takes to secure it even if you install it next to other seats. It has a good solid feel that makes you trust it, and that’s backed up by its 9-year product life, which is longer than that of most seats on the market. Even the Dionos, which I’ll recommend all day long, can’t match that when it comes to their harness lives.

Something else I’m fond of regarding the Foonf is that it’s quite easy to install in both cars and on airplanes. Keep in mind that it’s not likely to fit in the X-ray systems at most terminals, so you’ll want to leave a bit of extra time for being screened manually. Similarly, in most smaller and mid-sized jets, you aren’t going to get it to fit in the aisles, so you’ll need to be prepared to hoist it above them. However, the Foonf will fit the actual airplane seat well. Don’t even bother trying to fit it in the storage compartments above; that’s just an exercise in frustration unless you’re in first class.

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Why Buy the Clek Foonf?

This is the meat and potatoes of this car seat. The Foonf is one of a handful of seats in the United States that allows you to rear-face a child for up to 50 pounds. Every pound is precious, as the longer you rear-face, the safer your child is. In the US, parents tend to turn their children around into the line of fire at 1. In Sweden, this typically isn’t done until 4. Children in Sweden are far less likely to die in car crashes than children in the US. It makes that much of a difference. This alone is reason enough to buy the Foonf.

Besides that fact, the Foonf also features crumple zones through its “react” safety system designed to reduce the forces in frontal collisions. There are also metal (e.g., steel and magnesium) substructures and foam on the sides to reduce forces from side impacts. As I mentioned before, the anti-rebound bar is designed to keep the seat more stable in a collision by keeping the seat from rotating as much, reducing tensional forces. All of these are good things.

Something else I love about the Foonf, as I mentioned above, is the 26.5″ rear-facing shell height measurement. Many children outgrow their seats by height before weight, which means that in some seats, you don’t get as much RF time as you otherwise would expect; this is a problem with a number of Britax seats. Clek designed the Foonf smartly and as a result, kids actually have a better chance of reaching past 40 pounds with it than they would with several other seats.

Finally, as noted above, the Foonf is also simply an easier seat to install than most, due to its narrow width of 17 inches. That means it’s actually possible to install 3 across in a number of smaller vehicles. Wider seats restrict your vehicle options, and of course, it’s much more expensive to buy a new vehicle than a new car seat.

In conclusion, I’m not going to say the Foonf is the best car seat in the history of car seats, as there isn’t one seat that does everything perfectly. For example, I wish you could RF younger infants with the Foonf; because of its lower weight limit, you do need to wait several months until your little one reaches the lower weight limits and can also sit up unassisted. However, for what it does–provide nearly-unparalleled RF abilities by weight–it has very few equals (namely, the Rainier, the Fllo, and the Pacifica). It is an amazingly safe seat that can be fit in just about any vehicle while reassuring you as a parent that you have literally done everything possible to transport your child safely. Along with the Fllo, Rainier,  and Pacifica, this is one of only four seats I would unequivocally trust my children in while rear-facing.

I recommend the Foonf wholeheartedly. You can buy the Clek Foonf in a range of colors here. Canadians can buy the Foonf 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? Send me an email at carcrashdetective [at] gmail [dot] com.