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-   -   "Child Seat" for Babies & Kids (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/9215-child-seat-babies-kids-86.html)

Any shop recommendation in Bengaluru ( I prefer to look and feel before buying) where I can pick an age group 3 seat? Anyone been to Chico store personally?
ISO fix is preferred.

I have ordered from Chicco store, Bengaluru. It was 8 years back, had a nice experience. They couriered it to Kerala. Chicco and Britax are very good brands, I don’t get the looks and feel part, it’s meant to save kids! Buy something which is recommended by IIHS, not something that you feel is good!!!

Thanks, by look and feel I meant
1. the material quality, softness and so on.
2. the size and fitment to the car (I am not sure all seats/car positioning are of same dimensions - maybe yes.

Last year I searched most of the stores in Bangalore, including Chicco, for a good ISOFIX booster seat for my 3 year old (now 4 years) but could not find any. Finally bought the Britax Skyline from Amazon and really happy with it. My son sleeps in that easily and the headrest and side bolstering makes him very comfortable. Very easy to fix it with ISOFIX and move between cars.
I got it for 19k then, now seems like its 26k. We are infact paying twice or thrice the actual price in Europe / US, but then dont have much options for a good one.

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07XSC4284/...ing=UTF8&psc=1

Any particular reason why you prefer an ISOFIX seat for Group 3?

The reason I ask is because for Group 3 category seats, the ISOFIX merely holds the seat in place and provides an easier installation. ISOFIX usually has a weight limit of 33kgs for child+seat. If the child+seat weight extends beyond that, the ISOFIX will not provide any safety benefit. The seat belt is primarily going to take the load of the child in the event of an accident. Hence, I would suggest prioritising a seat that ensures the correct belt position for your child's height.

True, the latch system in booster seat will only help to place the seat properly when not in use. But that’s good too, else the vacant seat keeps rattling while driving.
But on other note most of these good quality booster seats comes with latch.

Thanks Rohit. The reason being - my kid is just over two (say around 9kgs) and have seen a few models that cater from 9 to 36Kgs. so thought of getting one that will cater for a longer period.

Your kid is too young to be in a Group 3 seat. I would suggest a Group 1 seat that will provide an extended rear-facing setting. Alternatively, you can also consider an all-in-one or multistage seat such as the Graco Extend2fit 3-in-1 that can be used till the kid is 10 years old.

Is the width between the ISOFIX mounts different across cars? There are few car seats that are offered with adjustable ISOFIX, hence the confusion.

After going through several pages of this discussion, I felt that most BHPians are skeptical about car seats from players that don't do business in developed countries. Really, it does not inspire confidence when a manufacturer says that its products are "Tested & Approved by Moms". However, it's interesting that such manufactures also claim that their car seats are ECE R44/04 certified. Now for this certification, a manufacturer must obtain approval from a certified testing lab and put an orange label on the car seat. More details about the label can be found here. This "approval label guarantees that the car seat complies with the basic safety requirements as set out in the European safety standard".

I would request BHPians who possess car seats from brands like R for Rabbit, LuvLap etc. to look for this label and share your findings here. I am curious to know the European country in which testing and approval were done.

The problem is that ECE R44, even the latest revisions, is itself an outdated regulation. They will be phased out in the EU and replaced by R129 (i-Size). You will see many newer Britax etc seats highlighting their i-Size certification. Under this new regulation the certification is a lot more stringent and includes, for example, a side impact (R44 doesn't). An additional advantage is that while they still use ISOFIX and come with a list of cars compatible with the specific seat, there are also cars that are approved to fit any i-Size seat (identifiable by a logo on the anchorages). Currently in India they are few (Swift/Ignis, Innova, all new VWs).

Hi All,

I have been reading this thread for sometime and understood there are 3 brands which are preferred in Isofix category. Graco, Britax and Chicco. Now Chicco has a store in Bangalore which is a natural choice for me.

Here are my requirements/questions,
1. I prefer Isofix mounts and assume that they are better than seatbelt only options. Hope I am right on this.
2. My daughter is 7.5 months, about 7Kg and 68cm. So, I will have to buy something that has at least group 1.
3. Chicco Cosmos and Unico seem to be in this range and there is 3k difference between both. People seem to prefer Chicco Nextfit any reason for that.
4. I drive a Nexon, can 2 adults sit at the rear after the child seat is installed?

The ECE certification claimed by these brands is a grey area. It boils down to whether we trust the label to be genuine. I had checked some of these local brand car seats as a part of work-related research. During my inspection, I immediately noticed how flimsy and light the seats were. In addition, there were other issues such as the plastic body having rough edges (that can be dangerous in a crash) or less padding. IIRC, the badge on all seats was E13 (Luxembourg). I did not pay much attention to it as I do not know how products from Luxembourg are viewed in the rest of Europe.
I would suggest you go to any baby product store and check these seats out.

The ideal way to judge a car seat's performance is through real-world crash reports or crash tests. This is where these local seats fall short as I could not find any crashes or crash tests for these seats. This makes me skeptical about their reliability.

Not just those 3. You can also consider Maxi Cosi, Diono Radian, Clek etc. But, these are not readily available. To answer your questions:

1. Both seat belts and ISOFIX are equally safe. ISOFIX mounts just make it easier for the car seat installation with minimal errors. Seat belt installation also has its own benefits such as universality and no weight limits (ISOFIX mounts have weight limits, around 30-40 kg for child+seat. You can find the limit in the car's manual).
2. You can consider any convertible seat that can be used till your daughter weighs 18kgs. Alternatively, you can also consider multi-stage or all-in-one seats that can be used till she is ready for the seat belt.
3. Chicco Cosmos has a lower weight limit than the other two. The nextfit is recommended as it has many features and supports extended rear-facing (very important).
4. For that, you need to consider a narrow seat that supports a "3-across" setting. I don't think any of the Chicco, Graco or Britax seats are narrow enough. See if you can find any Diono or Clek seats.

Thanks everyone for sharing your views on here, we recently borrowed my cousin's R for Rabbit car seat for our 2 year old daughter for our road trip. We were close to get this seat for our daughter until I stumbled open this thread.

After a lot of deliberation, we went ahead and bought the Graco 4ever 4in1 dlx car seat from Amazon.

We considered Graco, Britax Evalvo 1-2-3 and Chicco's NextFit, but went with Graco because of the availability.
Although this is way out of our budget, I'm glad I went with this instead of unproven ones.

Thanks again.

Thanks a lot for your inputs. I will go to the Chicco store to physically check if the seat fits with two other adults else I will pick something else.