Safe Seat for Your 20 to 40 lb Child Only!
Written: Apr 22 '04 (Updated Apr 22 '04)
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Pros: Safe for a taller child weighing 20-40 lbs
Cons: UNSAFE as a belt positioning booster seat
The Bottom Line: As this seat is only safe when used with the internal harness, I suggest looking elsewhere. Evenflo customer service is poor.
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| mmcphee's Full Review: Evenflo Comet Booster Car Seat |
We absolutely love our Evenflo Triumph 5 car seat so when we needed a second seat for another car I didn’t hesitate to purchase another Evenflo child safety seat. Since we knew we were only going to have this extra vehicle for about 6 months I did not want to spend a lot of money on a seat that would see very little use. So when I found an Evenflo Comet Booster Seat on sale for $40 I didn’t hesitate to purchase one. I wish I had waited.
The Basics
The Evenflo Comet Booster Seat is a forward facing only child safety seat. It comes with an internal 5-point harness for children who weigh 20-40 lbs and are 29-43” tall. The harness height and crotch strap each have 3 adjustable positions and are very easy to move, although the seat must be removed from the car to make the adjustments.
The harness tension is very easy to adjust with the knob located on the bottom front of the seat. You push the knob in and turn clockwise to tighten the harness. To loosen the harness, push in the knob and turn it counterclockwise while pulling up on the strap. While very difficult to make the adjustment on our living room floor, it is a breeze once it is securely installed in the car.
The crotch buckle and chest clip are both two-piece designs and give an audible click when properly secured. The seat is LATCH equipped in addition to having a tether if using the car seatbelt to secure the booster seat.
The seat cover is removable and washable. It comes with a soft shaped, removable cup holder than can be attached to either side of the booster seat just below the integral armrests.
The Evenflo Comet Booster Seat may be used as a belt positioning booster seat for children weighing 30-80 lb and 37-54” tall. The question is, should it be used.
Our Experience
We bought the Evenflo Comet Booster Seat just about a year ago. This seemed like the perfect seat. It was very reasonably priced and had a 5-point harness that my then 18 month old daughter would need for the short amount of time we would be using the truck. It seemed like a great value since once she outgrew her convertible car seat we would have this seat waiting for her to use as a belt positioning booster seat. I had done a little research on booster seats but I was disappointed that my usual source for information, Consumer Reports, was a little out of date with most reviewed models being discontinued. However, I felt comfortable with the Evenflo name and figured I was buying a good, safe seat.
I had no trouble installing the car seat into the passenger side, front seat on a 95 Mazda truck (no LATCH and no tether). The passenger side had no airbags and after talking to several experts I was assured my daughter would be safe, since there was no backseat to put her in anyway. My daughter seems comfortable enough in the adequately padded seat, and she definitely liked the arm rests. There is no recline feature, so she sits up rather straight, causing her head to flop around a little if she naps. However, the truck was only used for short trips so this was never really an issue for us. I never used the cup holder since the car was only a loaner.
I did have some trouble with the straps twisting in the crotch strap loops. Nearly every time I put her into the car seat I had to spend a few moments straightening out the straps. The harness length was very easy to adjust allowing for a coat one day and just a shirt another day.
The seating position was also a little low for my 18 month old, but that is common to all booster seats as they are typically designed with children in the upper height and weight range in mind. However with the way the seats in the truck were she had no trouble looking out the window although she would have if this seat had been installed in our car.
Fast-Forward One Year
My daughter is about to outgrow her convertible car seat, but at only 2 ½ she is not quite ready for a belt positioning booster seat, still needing a seat with an internal harness. The Evenflo Comet Booster Seat had been sitting unused in the garage for about 6 months now. I couldn’t remember off the top of my head exactly what the harness weight limit was on the booster seat so I recently blew the dust off and took a look at it. While the pad was going for a whirl in my washer I did a little research on the booster seat to make sure it was still up to snuff. The first place I headed was consumerreports.org. Imagine my surprise to read an updated car seat report that had been released in May 2003, less than 1 month after I had made my purchase.
I was shocked and upset to learn that the Evenflo Comet Booster Seat according to Consumer Reports is “not recommended” as a booster when child's size requires use of shoulder-belt guide. The not recommended rating is due to the fact the seat can “allow hazardous slack in the shoulder belts after they are threaded through the guides on the sides of the seats” The Evenflo Comet Booster Seat does not have an “open loop” design to its two shoulder belt positioning loops. They say a picture is worth a thousands words, these pictures from Consumer Reports shows both the “open loop” guide, as well as the style of the Comet, which is labeled as “steer clear.”
http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detail.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=102765&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=102705&bmUID=1009300911206
To be fair, this seat does meet all of the government standards for use as a belt positioning booster seat. However, I have never seen a crash test dummy that squirms to get a better look out of the window or leans forward to pick up a dropped toy. These are activities a normal child is going to do while sitting in a booster seat. These movements introduce slack into the seat belt and the belt may not retract properly once the child is sitting straight up again. If the slack remains a child could slip out of the seat entirely in an accident.
I gave it a test in the driveway. I put my daughter in the booster seat in our car for a little driveway test. My daughter is almost 38 lbs and 38” tall, well within the guidelines for using this seat as a belt positioning booster. I made sure the should belt was snug against her. Then I had her reach for a toy on the car seat next to her. Then I had her try and look out both side windows for a bird. When then sang a couple of songs that got her “dancing” in her seat. For patiently playing my little game with me I handed a lollipop back to from my position in the driver’s seat. When I got out to check there was several inches of slack in the seat belt, enough where I would be concerned about my daughter’s safety. I didn’t want to put the idea into my daughter’s head, but I gave the seat belt a pretty decent pull, as a child might do. The shoulder belt then sat limply around my daughter, loose enough so that she could wiggle under it. It only retracted about an inch when I let go of the belt. In my opinion there was no way this could be considered safe.
Talking to Evenflo
After reading recent review about another “not recommended” booster seat I decided to give Evenflo a call. After explaining my concerns to the customer service representative she put me through to her supervisor who wasn’t exactly helpful.
I explained my concern about the slack in the belt and mentioned the Consumer Reports article. She insisted that the seat was safe since it meets government standards. She said that Consumer Reports doesn’t do the same type of testing as the government so they aren’t important. I was also told that the problem was that my daughter was too young and the booster seat is intended for “older” children. When I pointed out that she was well within the height and weight limits for using the seat and that there was no age recommendation I was told that the can only provide height and weight, not age limits. I then mentioned that even an “older” child is likely to move around in a car seat she claimed that this was the first time that she has heard of the problem but she would pass my concern onto the design team. I then mentioned how Cosco was handling the same complaint (full or partial refund) and was told that my seat was no longer under warranty and that all Evenflo seats are like this so I must be the only one with a problem. But once again, she would pass my concerns onto the design team. End of call.
Now wait one minute! Unfortunately at that moment I did not have all of the information in front of
me. However, the Evenflo website clearly mentions that their Big Kid Booster Seat features “Open loop belt guides.” Is this a case of a misinformed customer service representative, or an outright lie? Either way someone else at Evenflo was going to get another earful from me.
And they did. I finally got some help from Evenflo. If I paid to send this seat back they would ship me an Evenflo Chase Booster seat, which I am not yet convinced will fix my problem. So when I went to look up estimated US Post Office shipping costs for an oversized box I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of paying over $50 to receive a car seat on sale at Babies R Us for $60. Add to that the fact that I would have to buy a box and this was obviously a losing proposition. So I made yet a third call to Evenflo and was fortunate to get the same customer service representative. She was unable to put me through to her supervisor but eventually gave in and grudgingly agreed to “make an exception” and send me instructions on how to destroy the car seat so that I can pay to ship back only a small fraction of the car seat. I can’t say that I hung up the phone a “satisfied customer” but at least I felt Evenflo was finally willing to address my concerns.
Final Thoughts
This is an OK car seat when used with the 5-point harness. It was certainly inexpensive enough and served us well as an extra car seat for the time we needed it. However, I see that the suggested retail price of the car seat is $80. WOW!
The 5-point harness on this seat might be perfect for the “tall skinny” child. Although my daughter is nearly at the weight limit for this seat, we still have one shoulder harness adjustment to go. While she is over the 97th percentile in both height and weight, she is consistently around the 55th percentile for height-vs-weight, meaning she is averagely proportioned. I have had friends complain that their child became too tall for other car seat harnesses before reaching the weight limit. It seems that this seat may be a solution for that problem.
Since this is my “epinion”, I’ll tell you that I would never use this seat as a belt positioning booster. You may feel differently and be satisfied with the government testing. If you feel this seat is safe enough to use make sure you pay careful attention to how much slack is introduced into the shoulder belt. If the belt does not retract and move with your child it isn’t doing its job, which is to protect your child. No matter how vigilant you are and how well behaved your child is this is a poor design for a belt positioning booster seat. I’m sure none of us wants to find out that the shoulder belt got stuck for the first time after a car accident. There are far better seats out there with an “open loop” design.
I only wish I had waited a few extra weeks to purchase a booster seat. I would have seen the Consumer Report article and I never would have spent any money on this seat and saved a lot of time dealing with Evenflo. As for Evenflo the company, while I did end up getting the results I was after, I am not pleased with my customer service experience. In the future I will be very hesitant to purchase any more of their products.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 39.99
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years
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Epinions.com ID:
mmcphee
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Member: Mary Ellen
Location: Nutmeg State
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Invaded by swine flu! It isn't pretty...
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