Phil and Teds is a company that has been making a number of high end strollers like the Navigator and Classic for years. However, it wasn’t until recently that they joined the car seat business, and brought out an infant seat that’s designed to work with nearly every single stroller they’ve put out. When a friend of mine who writes a ton of double stroller reviews picked one up and offered me the chance to review the Phil and Teds Alpha, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. You can buy the Phil and Teds Alpha infant car seat from Amazon here, as he did.

2015 Phil and Teds Alpha – What’s the big deal?

The Phil and Teds Alpha is a rear-facing only seat, or infant seat, much like the UPPAbaby MESA or Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4-35 or Cybex Aton 2, my favorite infant seats. It offers a number of standard features common to most infant car seats, such as the ability to be used directly from the hospital and installed with or without a base in multiple vehicles. If you’re looking for a seat that can face forward as well as backward, you’ll want a convertible seat, such as one of these I recommend here.

However, where it stands out from the competition is in its unparalleled compatibility with a range of high end single and double strollers offered by Phil and Teds, a company that’s gained a reputation among parents of multiple kids for their easy-riding and stylish strollers. How does it stand up in terms of safety and usability as a car seat? That was what I set out to find out in my review.

Buy the Phil and Teds Alpha on Sale at Amazon here.

Phil and Teds Alpha Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 4-35 pounds. Children can be up to 32″ tall, and their heads must not extend within 1″ of the top of the Alpha’s shell. I measure the height of the shell at 19.5.” Children must rear-face for at least one year. Of course, we’re going to aim for at least 4 years as readers of The Car Crash Detective, as the longer we rear-face, the better. The Swedes are the authority in extended rear-facing, and as a result, they have the lowest rates of child fatalities in auto collisions.

Dimensions of the Phil and Teds Alpha

The Alpha is the lightest rear-facing car seat I have ever reviewed at a mere 8.3 pounds. It’s so light you’ll want to use it to haul groceries! Well, maybe you won’t go that far. But it’s definitely a light seat. It has a 6 year product life and a range of harness positions that start at 5.5.”

Using the Phil and Teds Alpha

Base Installation

The Phil and Teds Alpha is an easy car seat to install whether or not the base is used. When the base is used, a LATCH install is rather straightforward, and the seat belt installation is even easier. A blue lock-off is included to make seat belt and LATCH installations a fool-proof process, and ensures that installations are nice and tight.

A ball level is included in the base that helps you make sure you’ve got a good recline for your child’s eight. There are 3 areas in the level, but only 2 are usable. The blue level is for children between 4 and 20 pounds, the grey area is for children between 20 and 35 pounds, and the red area shows a poor recline that cannot be used.

To ensure a good recline is present, a recline foot is included in the base that can be adjusted up or down. If you can’t achieve a good recline with the foot, you can use a tightly-rolled towel at the intersection of the top and bottom parts of the vehicle seat while retaining the recline foot in the retracted position.

Something I found odd about the base is that to release it, you need to press a button (a red one) on the base instead of on the seat itself. The good about this is that it makes the seat itself lighter when you’re using it separately from the base. The bad about it is that you need two hands to release the seat.

Baseless Installation

A baseless installation is also quite straightforward. Thanks to a clip behind the seat, you can even engage in European belt routing, which is still quite rare in rear-facing car seats in the United States. Essentially, Euro routing allows you to get a good solid seat belt installation even when you don’t have the base present. The base, of course, is detachable, and you can buy extra bases to install in as many vehicles as you’d like. I prefer convertible seats, but when I use infant seats, I always buy as many bases as I have cars in which I expect to use the seat, as it’s so much faster to use a base with an infant seat than it is to attempt a baseless installation over and over again.

Fit to children

One of the best features of the Alpha is the wide range of children it will fit. A premature infant pillow and newborn liner are included to help with fits on the lower end. You need to use the preemie pillow if you have a newborn who weighs below 6 pounds.

Additionally, to help fit, there are a pair of loops in the harness; longer and shorter loops. The longer loops are designed to fit larger children while the smaller loops work well with smaller children. You also get a pair of hip harness slots; there’s an inner slot and an outer slot. You use the inner slots if children weigh fewer than 12 pounds and the outer slots if children weigh more than 12 pounds. Small infants will fit much better this way.

I tried the seat with 4 and 7 pound dolls, and both fit well. My test 8 month infant also fit well, although she was getting close to outgrowing the seat at 27.”

Buy the Phil and Teds Alpha on Sale at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Phil and Teds Alpha?

When it comes to infant seats, I see their primary function as providing a comfortable and convenient way for parents to transport newborns and young infants when on the go. Infant seats like the Phil and Teds Alpha aren’t designed for extended rear-facing; for that, you’ll want one of the convertibles I recommend here, as you’ll want to keep rear-facing as long as possible for the safety of your child.

A seat like the Alpha that weighs next to nothing is a great seat because it makes carrying heavy infants a much easier affair. It’s also a good infant seat because it’s nearly guaranteed to fit newborns of all sizes (at least down to 4 pounds), and it’s easy to install and uninstall. I’m also a fan of its compatibility with a wide range of Phil and Teds strollers. Downsides to the Alpha include the fact that you need to keep the carry handle in the upright position when the seat is in use, which looks a bit odd, and the fact that you only get two recline positions to choose from. I recommend the Phil and Teds Alpha heartily, and you can buy the Alpha here in Flint/Red. Unfortunately, it’s not yet available in Canada, but the closest Canadian equivalent I’d recommend is the KeyFit 30, available 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.

Recaro has been making a number of quality car seats for adults for years, and have also shown a commitment toward bringing their technology o the field of child car seat safety. I recently took a look at one of their newest offerings with my review of the Recaro Performance Coupe infant seat, and liked it so much that I had to find another one of their seats. It arrived from Amazon a couple of days later, and I’ve spent the last week getting to know the seat. My thoughts? It’s a pretty good one.

2017 update: The Recaro ProRIDE remains unchanged, aside from a few fabric tweaks. The rear-and forward-facing height and weight limits are the same.

Recaro ProRIDE – What’s the big deal?

The Recaro ProRIDE makes use of a number of racing technologies that Recaro has been using for years in their adult racing car seats, but the most significant of these for me are those that have to do with side impact protection. Side impact collisions are the most likely to be deadly out of front, side, and rear collisions, and technology that helps keep children safer in such collisions is technology I want in my car seats.

The Recaro ProRIDE is a convertible seat, which means that it can be used both rear-facing and forward-facing, which is a fancy way of saying it’s a seat you can take with you to the hospital when your baby is due and keep him or her safe in it until he or she is ready to start elementary school. This, in a nutshell, is one of the reasons why I prefer convertible car seats to infant seats if you can afford to choose between the two. They last longer, which makes them easier on the wallet for parents.

Buy the Recaro ProRIDE on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Recaro ProRIDE Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 5 to 40 pounds. Children must be below 49″ tall and their heads must not be within 1″ of the top of the Recaro’s car seat shell in order to remain rear-facing. In the interests of best practices, you’ll want to keep your child rear-facing until he or she doesn’t fit the seat anymore in that configuration by height or by weight, as it’s the safest position in a collision. The internal shell height is 22.5″, which increases the odds of children actually making it to the 40 pound weight limit rear-facing. However, it’s not nearly as generous as the shell height in the NextFit or Head Wise 70.

Forward-facing: 20 to 65 pounds. Children must be under 49″ tall. Best practices indicates children should not be turned forward-facing until absolutely necessary as defined by the seat’s height and weight limits, so don’t mind the lower 20 pound range for forward-facing; focus on getting as close as you can to the 40 pound RF limit and then forward-facing until your child won’t fit in the seat any longer.

Dimensions of the Recaro ProRIDE

The ProRIDE is 19 inches wide, 11 inches deep, and between 27 and 29 inches high, depending on the extent to which the head restraint has been extended. Its relatively narrow width means that fitting a 3 across installation shouldn’t take too much work, although it’s not going to be as easy of a seat as a convertible like a Fllo, of course. The harness positions range from 10″ when the infant insert is used up to the highest position of 18.”

Using the Recaro ProRIDE

The ProRIDE is a solid-looking and solid-feeling seat when used. The installation is easy with both a LATCH and a seat belt installation, even though it’s important to note that you’ll have an easier time achieving a 3 across installation if you use the seat belt than if you use the LATCH setup. You also won’t have to deal with a LATCH weight limit if you choose a seat belt installation. That said, the LATCH system is easy to use and has a push-button adjustment system.

There are a range of features I’m a fan of in the ProRIDE, including the presence of its extensive side impact protection system. Recaro states the system has been tested to meet standards overseas, including protection for the 5 most vulnerable areas of the body in a side collision: the head, the pelvis, the neck, the torso, and the face. EPS foam is generously used throughout the seat to reduce the amount of forces children experience in collisions.

Additionally, I always love no-rethread harnesses when they’re present, and the ProRIDE includes one along with a head restraint that is designed to be easily adjustable and a Safety Stripe system. The system is designed to keep parents informed about potential harness twists in order to reduce the risks of safety hazards related to the harness. To adjust the harness, you simply turn a knob. That’s it!

The fabric present in the ProRIDE is designed to vent air easily to reduce sweating and increase breathability for children, which also results in an increase in comfort for our little travelers. The harness system is also padded and PUR foam is used in the head restraint. The mesh fabric is easily washable and comes in several different colors.

When rear-facing, the ProRIDE has a lower weight  limit of 5 pounds. Unfortunately, it’s not practical to try to fit a 5, 7, or even 7 pound newborn in the ProRIDE even with the infant insert, simply because of the height of the harness straps. Remember that the straps need to be below or at the shoulders of a rear-facing child, and that’s not practical with most newborns in the ProRIDE unless they’re larger.

When it comes to older children, the ProRIDE works much better. However, there isn’t as much room as I’d like to see in the legs for rear-facing children. They’ll be perfectly safe, but it can make things a bit less comfortable for larger children, and a bit more tricky for parents to buckle in and unload their children.

Buy the Recaro ProRIDE on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Recaro ProRIDE?

Personally, I’d buy the ProRIDE because it allows you to rear-face children for a number of years. Ideally, you’ll want to max out the seat by rear-facing until 40 pounds or as close to it as possible, since every year you can rear-face significantly increases your child’s safety. The biggest cons of the ProRIDE are the higher harness straps that make it hard to fit newborns in the seat and the limited leg room when rear-facing. I’d also personally like to see higher rear-facing weight and height limits, as there are many seats that can do better today. That said, the seat is constructed extremely solidly and offers some of the most tested side impact protection you can buy today. I’m also a fan of the no-rethread harness and additional safety systems built into the seat for parents.

I recommend the Recaro ProRIDE. You can buy it here in Aspen, Blaze, Blue Opal, Misty, Sable, and Riley.

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.

Recaro has been in the racing business for decades and the car seat business for a number of years now, and have gradually been expanding their line from quality booster seats to convertibles and infant seats. The Recaro Performance Coupe is their newest infant seat, and when I was offered the chance to review one, I couldn’t pass it up. You can buy the Recaro Performance Coupe here, and keep reading to see whether it lives up to its “performance” moniker when it comes to keeping kids safe and comfortable and parents happy and stress-free. From a company with a history in racing, I had high expectations.

2017 update: There haven’t been any significant changes to the Recaro Performance Coupe in the last two years in terms of rear-facing weight or height limits; it remains pretty much the same seat as it was during my original review.

Recaro Performance Coupe – What’s the big deal?

The Recaro Performance Coupe infant seat is touted as having a number of technologies designed to make riding in a car seat both a more pleasurable and safe experience for children, beginning with features like memory foam and temperature-sensitive fabrics and ending with side impact protection inspired by racing technology. It’s an infant seat, which means it’s designed to be used from day one when leaving the hospital, and that it will need to be replaced within the first 2 years of life, due to the size limits of the seat. It is also designed to rear-face only. Is it worth it? I think so. Let’s take a closer look at why in this Recaro Performance Coupe infant car seat review.

Recaro Performance Coupe Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 4 to 35 pounds. Children must be less than 32 inches in height and must remain rear-facing throughout the life of the seat. The seat also cannot be used if the child’s head is within 1″ of the top of the seat. Being an infant seat, this seat is not designed to enable children to rear-face until they’re 4, which is what I recommend. However, it will get you started, and parents should get at least 1 year out of it.

An infant pillow insert is included in the seat that is designed to be used between 4 and 11 pounds. There are 5 adjustable height positions for the harness and 2 buckle positions.

Buy the Recaro Performance Coupe on Sale with Free Shpping at Amazon here.

Dimensions of the Recaro Performance Coupe

The Performance Coupe is 18 inches high, 17 inches wide, and 31 inches deep. When installed with the base, it weighs 18.5 pounds, while when without the base it weighs 10 pounds. In other words, it’s a pretty beefy seat. It’s narrow enough, however, that you shouldn’t have any problem with 3 across car seat installations. You can check the 3 across guide to see what similar seats fit well in your vehicle.

Using the Recaro Performance Coupe

Out of the box, the Performance Coupe inspires confidence; it has a solid, rugged look to it, and it feels firm when held. It’s also quite a large seat. The seat has a number of features that, per Recaro, were inspired from racing safety research, including side impact protection that is designed to keep the entire body of the child shielded in the event of a side impact collision. Given the high rates of fatalities from side impact collisions, I’m a fan of the technology. EPS foam is included generously throughout the seat to help with force reduction and absorption. The side wings are deep and run the length of the seat.

HERO harness technology is also included, which refers to a system for making the harness straps less likely to twist when being used. They aren’t twist-proof, but from my efforts to twist them, I’d definitely agree with Recaro’s assessment of their being twist-resistant. It’s designed to make the harness adjustment easier each time. A no-rethread harness is included, which is easy to adjust with one hand. Five positions are included for height, as well as 2 buckle positions, which is rather standard across most infant car seats these days.

The HERO technology specifically works by keeping the shoulder pads at the child’s neck, shoulders, and head, while at the same time making harness twisting less likely and helping keep the chest clip in the right position. It’s also designed to make the seat more comfortable by keeping the harness straps away from a child’s neck due to its positioning of the shoulder pads in the harness.

The Performance Coupe also includes cloud comfort memory foam, which is designed to take the shape of your baby over time. It’s similar to the foam used in memory foam mattresses, and it seems to do a good job in remembering the imprints left by babies sitting in the seat.

Percale fabrics are used in the seat cover, which are soft, well woven, and feel pleasant when touched. They are designed to balance temperatures felt by children sitting in them, in order to keep them from getting hot or cold easily. The cover itself is easy to maintain, as it is easily removable and can be cleaned quickly with a wet cloth. I particularly like that the cover can be removed and reattached without needing to rethread the harness, as is common in a number of cheaper infant seats. The canopy is large and can be set to multiple positions.

Installing the seat is rather straightforward, whether through seat belt installations or LATCH installations. You can install the seat by itself or with the included base. You can also buy extra bases to make installation easier in multiple cars, which I would highly recommend due to its allowing you to simply snap in the seat without disturbing a sleeping infant.

A micro-adjust knob is included in the base of the car seat along with a flip foot to help you find the right recline without resorting to rolled blankets or pool noodles. Specifically, the knob can be used to make small adjustments relative to the ground, while the quickflip recline is essentially a foot that you can activate in order to achieve a few extra inches of recline. I also like the inclusion of a bubble level indicator to help you make sure that you have the right level of recline dialed in.

Speaking of recline, the seat does a good job fitting my test 7 pound newborn doll, and is a seat I would expect to fit slightly smaller than full term babies as well. If you have a baby between 4 and 11 pounds, you’ll need to use the included infant insert.

The Performance Coupe may also be used with the Performance Denali stroller to form a complete travel system.

Buy the Recaro Performance Coupe on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Recaro Performance Coupe?

For me, buying an infant car seat is primarily about safety, and secondarily about convenience. You want a seat that’s going to fit your children well and you want a seat that you’re going to want to use frequently. I find the Recaro Performance Coupe fits on both accounts. It’s designed to work from day one from the hospital and will fit your child until he or she is at least 1 year old. When your child begins to approach 1″ of the seat’s height, 32 inches, or the 35 pound weight limit, you’ll want to look into a convertible seat next so you can continue rear-facing until you reach 4 years of age or more, as rear-facing is the safest position for a child of any age when traveling in a motor vehicle, but this holds especially true for infants and toddlers. Don’t be in a rush to forward-face.

Besides the usefulness of the Performance Coupe from day one, I’m also a big fan of the side impact technology, the HERO harness technology, the ease of installation, the fact that it’s made locally in the United States, the multiple options for achieving a good recline, and the rugged feel of the seat. Drawbacks to the seat include the fact that it’s on the heavier end compared to some other infant seats. However, I’m also a fan of the memory foam and the sturdiness of the seat. I recommend the Recaro Performance Coupe infant seat wholeheartedly. You can buy the Performance Coupe here in Fern, Scarlet, Granite, Indigo, Onyx, Royal, and Candy. 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.

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.