Britax Freeway: The best seat I have owned!
Written: May 23 '01 (Updated Jun 11 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: EPS foam, no-twist straps, built-in locking clips
Cons: Price is steep, hard to find in stores
The Bottom Line: Features like EPS foam, no-twist straps and built-in locking clips make this seat easy to use correctly every time.
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| iowamommy's Full Review: Britax Freeway Plus Car Seat |
I am the excited new owner of a Britax Freeway Plus car seat. Having wanted to try a Britax for quit some time, I found a good deal online and couldn't resist! We don't have any stores in our area that carry Britax, so I had never even seen one in person. Now I know what everybody is raving about!
What is the Freeway Plus?
This is a forward-facing car seat. It is not a convertible seat that faces the rear and then faces the front when the baby is older. It does not convert to a belt-positioning booster later. Its only job is to be a forward facing seat, and it does a great job of that.
Who can use the Freeway Plus?
This is only for toddlers who are between 20-40 pounds. Since experts recommend rear facing as long as possible, the seat should not be used by babies under a year old. The minimum guideline to meet before turning your baby forward is a year old AND 20 pounds. This is only the minimum, though. Babies who are turned too early face an increase risk of spinal cord damage. When the head is flung forward during a crash, the neck bones can separate and lead to the spinal cord stretching too far. This is due to the neck bones not being hard enough at a younger age, and separating under force.
My baby is 16 months old, and my 4 year old also fits in this seat, so it covers a wide range of sizes. My 4 year old may be on the small side, so a more realistic guess would be that most kids would still fit in the seat by age 3.
Features
The Freeway offers a 5-point harness, which is the type of harness that safety experts recommend. This restraint system is safer than an overhead shield seat, and Britax products are only offered in 5-point models. A 5-point harness is one that has a strap coming down over each shoulder, up over each side of the hip, and one coming up from the crotch, all buckling together in the belly area.
Something new to me is the puzzle buckle. If you are familiar with fastening 5-point harnesses, you know that you buckle in each side of the harness separately. With the puzzle buckle, you fit the two buckle pieces together first, and then that snaps into the buckle. This is to avoid one side not getting buckled securely.
The Freeway has a two-piece chest clip. This is a big improvement over the one-piece chest clips that most seats used to come with, and some still do. This new style has two pieces that just snap together similar to buckling a high chair strap. This stays in place since the baby generally can't undo this as they can undo the old paperclip style, where one harness strap is undone to get baby in and out of the seat.
You probably have heard about car seats coming with tether straps, but the Versa-Tether on the Freeway is a bit different. A tether strap is attached to the top backside of the car seat and then fastened to a mounting bracket in the vehicle, behind the seat. With our van, this is under the captain's chair where the seat is installed. This tether reduces the amount the top of the car seat would move forward during a crash, thus lessening the amount the child's head might move forward. The Versa-Tether is different in that is has two attachment points at the top of the seat leading down to the mounting bracket, so it forms a V shape.
The seat has two recline positions, although that doesn't excite me much. I leave it upright, as I think it is safer.
The Freeway has EPS foam for protection around the child's head. This is the material used in helmets to help absorb crash forces. The seat also has a comfort lining on the seat behind the child.
A great feature is the no-twist straps. If you have used a car seat with straps that twist, you'll appreciate this feature. Not only are twisty straps a pain to use, but they can be dangerous since the crash forces aren't spread out on a flat strap. They are concentrated on a narrow, twisted strap, putting excessive force in one spot. With the Britax, the twisty strap problem is eliminated.
Lastly, the seat comes with built-in locking clips that make installation so much easier if your vehicle requires the use of a locking clip. No more fiddling around trying to get the clip on every time you install the seat.
Our experience
Installation of the Freeway was very easy. I had it tight in just minutes. After fastening the tether strap, the seat would not budge. Very impressive! The locking clip was so easy to use.
My first thought upon seeing the seat was how comfortable it looked. The padding is very adequate. I got the denim fabric as I thought it would wear well. I believe the Freeway has three choices of fabric.
I've had the opportunity to test this out with two of my children. Although I bought the seat for my youngest child, I didn't want to turn her forward facing yet, so I let my 4 year old have first crack at using it.
Her first comment upon sitting in the seat was, "There are no hard things in my back!" I asked her what she meant. On her other car seat, there are plastic ovals lining the harness slots, and these apparently bother her. She has never mentioned it before, but it took just a few seconds of sitting in the Freeway to notice that this was different.
She fit with the straps in the highest slots. She didn't have a lot of growth room, but still fit within the guidelines.
The puzzle buckle did take some getting used to. I still fumble around with it at times, but for the most part, I like it. Her preschool teacher may have another opinion on the buckle and it seemed to cause her trouble. I appreciate the fact that when it's buckled, I know it's buckled, instead of just appearing to be buckled as has happened a couple times in the past on other seats.
When I moved my 16 month old to the seat, I moved the harness down to the middle set of slots. There are three sets of slots to pick from, depending on where your child's shoulders line up. All three sets are reinforced to be used forward facing since this seat only faces forward, unlike convertible seats where you usually have to use the top slots only when facing front, since the top row is often the only set reinforced to be used this way. A few convertible seats are exceptions to this rule and do have all slots reinforced, including the Britax Roundabout, discussed below.
My baby sleeps comfortably in the seat. She cannot open the buckle herself to escape. If she gets to that point where she can do that, Britax now offers a buckle cover to get around this problem.
I still can't believe how easy it is to tighten the harness! It really is a one-pull adjustment instead of tug-tug-tugging on the harness like most seats require. It seems almost too easy! There are no straps to untwist, which is great. I am used to nice straps with my Fisher Price Safe Embrace convertible seat, so that feature isn't new to me, but the Freeway has a smoother pulling harness adjuster.
What is the price for all these safety features and convenience?
The saying about getting what you pay for is true in this case, unlike some seats that lack features and still cost an arm and a leg. Price is the main reason I have never had a Britax before, not to mention that it isn't available in stores in my area. This seat generally runs between $160-170 online. I managed to get it for $120 by using an online coupon at Babystyle.com and shopping through a rebate site called Dash.com. At that price, I couldn't resist!
Another consideration
If you are considering this seat, first ask yourself if you'd be better off with a Britax Roundabout. The RA is the convertible version of the Freeway. It is used rear facing and then turns forward facing when the baby is old enough to turn. This is a seat most parents would get more use out of. In my case, though, I didn't need another convertible seat since my daughter was now old enough to forward face and I am not planning to have any more kids. If you need a rear facing seat in the future, the RA would be a wiser choice, since most kids can't make it a full year before outgrowing the infant carrier seat. The RA fills that gap of rear-facing months until being turned.
Final thoughts
I would highly recommend this seat. I feel it is very safe with the extra safety features like EPS foam. With the ease of use, it makes it more likely that the seat will be used correctly each and every time. It is definitely the most user-friendly seat I have owned over the past 10 years, and I have been through many of them!
As an extra note, just in case you are wondering why overhead shield seats aren't as safe, the harness is held away further from the body, and the child sometimes will slam into the plastic shield during an accident, causing injuries to the head, neck and abdomen. These shields even have come off during an accident and injured other occupants. Think of it as you sitting inches from the dashboard. Would you want to hit that in an accident? That is what the overhead shields are like to your baby, given the chance of contact during a crash. If you wouldn't pick up the shield and whack your baby over the head with it, why subject them to hitting it at several MPH? The seats are still on the market because the US has lower standards for car seat safety. You will not find these seats in Europe, where they have stricter standards.
I felt like I should point this out because so many people think the shield is for safety and that couldn't be further from the truth!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 120.00
Age Range of Child: 12 to 36 Months
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iowamommy
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Location: Iowa
Reviews written: 144
Trusted by: 97 members
About Me:
Mother of four product testers!
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