The Peg Perego Primo Viaggio Travel System. It's really bad.
Written: Oct 30 '01
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Pros: Big basket, large wheels, not much else.
Cons: Everything else.
The Bottom Line: Don't spend $400 on this thing. Just don't.
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| prfstars's Full Review: Peg Perego 2001 Primo Viaggio Travel System |
When you spend $400 on a stroller, like the Peg Perego Primo Viaggio Travel System, you go to great lengths to sing its praises. You extoll its fine European design and workmanship. You admire its tasteful fabric, and sneer at the cutesie fabrics on the strollers that cost a third as much. You probably even think the inscrutable thousand-point seatbelt will keep your child safer, or help him get into Yale someday. It's not easy to admit you spent a lot of money on a poorly designed and shabbily made product. After two months of use, I'm ready to take that step.
My name is Melissa, and I spent $400 on a bad, bad stroller.
A Travel System is a stroller/carseat combination. This has a few advantages over a traditional stroller or carseat. One of the nicest benefits is that you can move your baby from car to stroller without waking him; You simply lift the carseat out of its base, and snap it into the stroller. This is especially nice when your baby is small, and seems to get lost in the big seat of normal stroller.
Travel Systems have been available from manufacturers such as Evenflo and Graco for years, and now the foo-foo European manufacturers are catching up. Peg Perego introduced their first Travel System in 2001. Those of us who ran out and bought it right away are the unfortunate beta testers who paid a lot of money for the privilege of finding all the bugs.
I bought my Primo Viaggio Travel System back in May. I wasn't due until November, but I spent most of my pregnancy on bedrest, and shopping for baby items online was one way to pass the time. Shopping prematurely isn't usually a good idea, but when my baby was born two months early, I was glad I already had everything on hand. I was glad, that is, until I went to use the Primo Viaggio for the first time and wished I could send the thing back.
The Carseat
I knew this thing was trouble the first time I used it. The day before my baby came home from the hospital, I pulled the carseat out of the box to install it in my car. The carseat consists of a base and a seat; the base is secured to your car with a seatbelt and locking clip, and the seat snaps securely into the base. Very securely. So securely, in fact, that I couldn't get the seat off the base to put the base in my car. I tried shaking it. I tried wiggling it. I tried brute force. Nothing worked. Then I tried my solution of last resort: I enlisted the help of my husband, a MacGyver type who could build a laser from the items in your pantry but can't put together an Ikea bookshelf without leaving out lots of "unnecessary" pieces. He managed to pry the seat off by standing on the base and pulling up on the handle while I pulled the "release" lever on the back of the seat. It worked, but we agreed this would not be a practical way to use the seat in my car.
Once we got the seat off, it was obvious that there was a serious design flaw. My husband actually had to file down the clamps that lock the seat into the base to make them work properly.
That was strike one.
We went to the hospital to get our baby the next morning, carseat in hand. We fastened him in, took him outside the hospital and into daylight for the first time, and discovered that the Primo Viaggio's sun canopy is useless. It uses cheap little plastic nubs to keep the canopy in place, and they just don't work.
That's strike two, and we hadn't even tried the stroller yet.
The carseat has a few nice features. The seatbelt is fairly intuitive, the straps are easy to adjust,the fabric resists spills and stains, and there is built-in head support for smaller babies. My son was barely five pounds when he came home from the hospital, and we were able to make a nice snug fit for him without buying any additional products. When your baby grows, you can adjust the head support or remove it entirely.
The Primo Viaggio is also lighter than many infant seats. Unfortunately, the design of the handle makes it as uncomfortable to carry as a heavier seat.
The Stroller
The stroller isn't all bad. With my first child, I used an Aprica Prima and a Combi Savvy Z. They were both quite durable, but the one thing they lacked was a decent basket. The Peg Perego Primo Viaggio stroller has the best basket I've ever seen on a foo-foo stroller. It's wide, it's deep, and it has a huge opening so that you don't have to wrestle out your diaper bag.
One of the best features of my Aprica Stroller was its one-hand open/fold mechanism. Like most people, I've been endowed with only two-thirds as many hands as you need to open the Primo Viaggio. Fortunately, opening it up again is much easier.
My Aprica and Combi strollers had dainty little wheels which were adequate for trips to the mall, but this time around, I wanted big butch wheels that could handle the bumpy terrain between my house and the beach. The Primo Viaggio's mean looking wheels are twice the diameter of my Combi's wheels, and they handle bumps like an Army Jeep. Unfortunately, they also wobble on their axes with the shrill squeak of a mouse being sodomized by a Saint Bernard. Yes, I've tried WD-40, but as in the analogy above, there are some jobs for which no amount of lubrication will suffice.
Yet another feature that sounded good was the five point seatbelt. It's the same sounds-good five point seatbelt that Peg Perego uses on their redesigned Prima Pappa Highchairs. This is the least intuitive seatbelt design I've ever seen. It's some sort of Mensa puzzle. You may get used to it after a few days, but friends, grandparents, and babysitters will never get your child strapped in properly without some direction. This raises a big safety concern. No matter how secure a seatbelt is, it's useless if you don't use it. This seatbelt is awkward to use, so some parents or caregivers might decide to skip using it when they're feeling rushed.
Durability
The Primo Viaggio hasn't been around long enough to address durability, but I've got an idea of how it will hold up. The fabric is the same as the fabric on my Peg Perego Tender Twin, which is strong, easy to clean, and not especially prone to fading. Unfortunately, this stroller's quality does not equal the Tender Twin's. The Primo Viaggio feels cheap. The plastic parts are flimsy and thin, and if you can believe it, have some sharp edges. There's a sharp edge in the exact spot where I place my right hand to push the stroller, and it pokes me every time.
A Recall Already. Now There's a Shock
If you bought a Primo Viaggio Infant Seat, Primo Viaggio Travel System, or Pliko Travel System between 2/01 and 6/01, your seat may have a defect that prevents the carseat from locking into the base securely. For more information, go to http://www.perego.com/pages/RecallCSPressRelease.htm
Don't Buy It.
If you've found this review, it's because you want the convenience of a Travel System, and Peg Perego's quality and style. Unfortunately, the Primo Viaggio needs more work. Until this model is redesigned, you're better off making your own travel system with a Peg Perego Milano or Venezia stroller and an adapter bar from Peg Perego ($30) that will accommodate most infant carseats.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 400
Age Range of Child: 0 to 12 Months
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