AVAILABILITY
As noted yesterday, Consumer Reports tested 12 infant car seats. It determined only 2 of them were any good. Here in Canada, only 6 of those seats were available, including only 1 that was any good (the Graco SnugRide). My conclusion? Only half of the manufacturers bothered to distribute their products in the Canadian market.
PRICEHow about price? The two best seats in the Consumer Reports test were only $90. Great news. But when you look at the Canadian results, the price of the Graco SnugRide jumps to $150. With the difference in currency exchange, this seat should only be $100. With other items, you could just buy the $90 US model and have it shipped to Canada. You can't do that with a car seat, because it won't have the Canadian safety sticker on it, so your insurance won't cover any accidents or injuries using the seat. Lame.
You would think this would have come up in the G-8 meetings or the Summit of the Americas or something. What DO they talk about at those meetings, if not this?
Despite this lengthy rant, I think I've figured out what to buy. I'll get the Graco SnugRide from Sears for $150 and I'll order the stroller frame that it clicks into for $60 from Amazon.com (this stroller is $100 in Canada). I think this seat/stroller combo (as long as it works) will be a decent compromise between the bulky travel systems and the more spartan umbrella strollers. Since we don't live in Manhattan or anything, we usually travel by car. Therefore, the car seat is more important for us than the stroller, which would only be for occasional use, really.
And After all, we can only use this car seat for the first 6 months, so we don't want to mortgage the farm to pay for it... do we?
(For more info about the best strollers for NYC and every other occasion, go to the Tales From The Crib posting.)
3 comments:
So sorry about the car seat problem! Maybe you will have to try using your arm! Ha! But guess what we had to do? We had to go take another mug shot and send for another passport to visit out of the USA, much moola, and we aren't even going anywhere but Canada out of the states. But it is worth it to see our family there. Please come to Calgary when we will be there to visit as we probably won't get to your neck of the woods. But thanks for the wonderful visit here in Provo!
So what good is the stroller after the kid grows out of the infant car seat, do they sit in the lower basket? Also I wouldn't be too concerned about buying a stroller second hand. I think they should be safe, assuming your stroller speeds are reasonable. Like you aren’t dragging the stroller behind the car or attaching rocked boosters to blast through the mall. Most used strollers should pass the major accident test, i.e. head on collision with another stroller.
I believe it's just a marketing scam. It's all about convincing consumers to buy new products under the guise of safety. When we bought our carseat the 5 point harness had just been introduced to replace the 3 point harness (you can no longer find the 3 point one new). If you were in a car accident I really don't think there'd be much difference between the two. The straps are so snug on both that the baby isn't going anywhere. If anything the 5 point is more of a pain because you have to get their arms through the straps instead of just pulling it over their head.
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