safety
Child car seats at Warentest – only a good one for older children
The shells protect best (symbol photo)
© Monkeybusinessimages
Babies are usually well secured in bucket seats. The situation is different for older children; in the largest class, the testers can only recommend one model.
Child seats are designed to protect the little ones – unforgivable if the shell detaches from the base in an accident. The product testers can also recommend good seats this year. In the current test of 24 models, eleven achieved a good grade. In the printed magazine only these good seats are taken into account, the poorer seats can only be found in the paid online offer.
Child seats are real lifesavers, because normal car seats do not protect children because of their small body size. Child seats are available in all dimensions and price ranges. They are regularly checked by the Stiftung Warentest. Because a test failure has different consequences than a bad paddle mixer, this is a matter of life and death.
Bowls are mostly safe
The test included all sizes from baby seats to seats for twelve-year-olds with a size of 1.50 meters. As always in the test, the baby seats for the little ones performed best. This is due to the concept: the babies lie completely in the securing shell against the journey. However, as the child grows larger, this no longer works.
The Mima iZi Go Modular X1 with the matching base from BeSafe is the test winner in the baby class with a grade of 1.7. But it also costs an impressive 555 euros. The score was 1.8 Graco Snugessentials hardly worse. With the base it costs only 140 euros. “A real bargain,” say the testers. For toddlers – 65 to 105 centimeters – only two models did well. The best – grade 2.1 – is that Cybex Sirona SX2 i-Size for 400 euros. In the largest class up to 150 centimeters tall, only one seat achieved a good grade (2.1). For the Joie i-Trillo LX 120 euros are due.
One-size-fits-all
In view of the costs, many parents want a child or baby seat that grows with them and can be adjusted to the growing size. The manufacturers also offer something like this, but the one-size-fits-all seats do not come close to the level of the specialists: “Some of the seats are error-prone to use, and they are often expensive and heavy,” judged the testers. No model achieved a rating better than satisfactory in terms of safety. You can therefore not recommend them.
In addition to the test, the foundation warns of the pitfalls of online purchases. Here the customer has to check the goods carefully after receipt. The testers were not sent the models they had ordered. In return, they got similar models from the same manufacturer. So you can’t be sure which model will be delivered exactly.
In principle, child seats can also be bought second-hand. But you should pay attention to the date of manufacture. This is important because of the progress made in seat construction, but plastics also age and lose their properties over time.
You can take the whole test for a fee here see.
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