Yes - you read that correctly. I love these carseats. My husband loves these carseats. My children love these carseats. But even though all this carseat "love" is going around, I urge you to beware, and to be cautious when considering this seat for your child.

Unless you are a carseat technician, or plan to have a tech help you install this seat, I would not encourage a parent to buy it, just because of its track record of having terrible installation problems. To give you an idea, while I am not a tech but planning to become one and have studied the ins and outs of carseats and installation "tricks" in certain vehicles, it took me FOUR HOURS to get a solid forward-facing installation in my vehicle.

Side to side the installation was a breeze. Front to back I had three inches of movement (the max allowed is 1 inch). Over and over and over again we installed and reinstalled until we had figured out a trick to tighten it up even more. Now, the seats install perfectly - but had I not studied car seat tech info I would never have known that the front to back movement I was seeing was not allowable. After all, it didn't move side to side.

If you purchase this seat, be prepared to return it. Be aware of all the installation issues it has. READ YOUR MANUAL! Don't ever just assume that you know how to use the seat. And always have a tech inspect your installation. Finally, do not use this seat if you cannot install it properly and use it properly EVERY SINGLE TIME your child sits in it.

That said, we purchased two of the Radian65s in granite for our van's third row bench seat. Both Radians are in the outboard positions. Both are presently being used rear facing for our 39 month old and our 19 month old. Since we are huge advocates of extended-rear-facing because it is safer, we were happy that the Radians allow us to rear face our children until 33 pounds. Our three year old is currently 29 pounds; our 18 month old 26 pounds. They have a long way still to go - we are hoping our daughter will make it rear facing until at least four years of age.

Forward facing, these seats can accommodate a child up to 65 pounds, provided they do not max out the seat in height first.

Some of the things we love about these seat are its:
Steel-reinforced shell. This makes the seat very heavy - so much so that I'm not sure why Sunshine Kids bothered to make it fold-able since I really cannot imagine anyone carrying this thing around.
EPS foam throughout - giving the seat Side Impact Protection and wonderful shock-absorbing qualities in an accident in both the head and torso areas.
Safe Stop - helps in an accident to cut down on the rebound from being thrown forward from the force of the impact. Safe Stops are only usable in the forward facing position.
Tethers - this seat is able to be tethered in both rear facing and forward facing positions. This reduces head excursion in an impact.
Cover - the fabric is easily washable in the sink with running water and baby shampoo (at least that's what we use). When finished washing, we place between towels, stomp out the excess water, then hang to dry. It has always dried overnight.
Narrowness - these seats are so wonderfully narrow that we can actually get three across on our bench seat - something that no other seat can boast. And though they are narrow, the inside room isn't compromised - children actually have more shoulder room in a Radian than in almost any other carseat.
LATCH - the Radian has the same LATCH clips the Britax has - very easy to use, a breeze to release. (Though we never use LATCH - we actually prefer the seatbelt install).
Emergency ID - every Radian comes with a child emergency info packet which attaches to the back of the seat so it is visible in an emergency.
8 year expiry - one of the longest expirations of any carseat. Most expire 6 years after date of manufacture.
Customer Service - so far, it's been excellent.

Some of the things we do NOT love about this seat are its:
Narrow buckle tongues - these cause the harness to fold/pinch/double up on itself inside the tongue's slot. I found them unbearably annoying. We contacted Sunshine Kids and they were happy to send us some replacement tongues with a wider opening. Problem solved!
Chest clip - the Radian's chest clip is the smallest I have ever seen, and because of its size it pulls the harness in so tight that it literally scrapes on the child's neck. My children found this intolerable. So once again, we contacted Sunshine Kids about this. We had noticed that in earlier models of the Radian the clip had originally been a Britax chest clip, so we asked if we could switch them out on our new Radian. We were given the go-ahead. (PLEASE do not use any other chest clip - only the Britax clips and the Sunshine Kids clips were crash-tested with this seat). Again, problem solved!

I am very happy with our investment in these seats. Our children have never complained (since we've switched out the chest clips!) and they actually enjoy their seats. We also purchased Sunshine Kids' Comfy Soft so the kids would have a toddler pillow to lay their heads on. It works well and gives the seat an extra bit of comfort.

Sunshine Kids - thank you for a well thought-out product. Now please just fix the install issues! :)



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 200
Age Range of Child: 12 to 36 Months