Group 1 Baby Car Set For Is200

vinnyh · July 6, 2009

Hi

I'm looking for a Group 1 car seat for my IS200 Sport. I've read all the various threads and here's what I understand -

EDIT - see post #6 below for the car seats we found compatible with the IS.

A popular choice of seat for the IS seems to be the Maxi-Cosi Priori XP. However I read on some threads that there's a risk of buckle crunch on this model and Mothercare / Halfords don't recommend it's fitted in an IS.

Another option is to use ISOFIX compatible seats to get around the buckle crunch issue, however the placing of the ISOFIX locking points on the IS means that the seats end up lopsided because of the central 'hump' in the rear seats.

Information on seat manufacturer's websites seems sketchy at best with no clear recommendation on which seat to go for.

Can anyone offer any thoughts on this - what seats are you using and what issues (if any) do you have with them?

Cheers

Vinny

Dimitris Papamichail · July 6, 2009

I am also interested on vinnyh topic since I will have a baby soon

aztecbandit1 · July 6, 2009

One of the things i did when we had our daughter was to go into Halfords and try a few different seats in the car, to see how they sat on the seat and fastened in? They let you try before you buy and most of them have trained fitters to help get the best seat for your car? we were a bit cheeky though as we got them to try a few and the one that worked the best we brought from another place quite a lot cheaper :D

We ended up with a Maxi Cosi Cabriofix for the stage 1, but she was soon out of it and into the next one up, Which we then brought a Britax seat for stage 2/3+ onwards and were still using the Britax seat now at 3yrs old and still fits very well, good quality and quite easy to clean :)

Thought i'd have trouble and need a new one now i have the skyline, but again the Britax fits very well in the seat and doesn't move due to the wide base of it :)

Something a lot of places dont show you is the side movement of the seat, most will fit it in your car and pull and push it to show you how tight it is, but they don't usually show you how it moves from side to side, so be a good idea to check its sideways movement when its fitted?

I found out with our compact pushchair/car seat setup, That when i was cornering it would lean over with the weight of our little one in and we stopped using it ,as to me it was quite unsafe to see our little girl at a 45 degree angle on the rear seat when she should have been upright

vinnyh · July 6, 2009

I'd heard that some of the Britax seats were a good fit for the IS. Do you know the model of your seat?

russelllinn · July 7, 2009

I have a RECARO baby seat on an ISOFIX system in my IS and there are no issues. The rear central bump doesn't actually make contact as the pole that goes down to the floor pan keeps it level.

Another point was that I found that I needed the ISOFIX system as the seatbelt through the rear of the child seat in the LEXUS does not work, the seat kept swivelling

Another plus point was Recaro was actually cheaper than BRITAX etc (I used John Lewis)

Tried to post pics so you can get an idea although light wasn't great! Let me know if they don't work

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss17/be...2/Photo0533.jpg

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss17/be...2/Photo0534.jpg

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss17/be...2/Photo0535.jpg

vinnyh · July 12, 2009

Cheers for the help. Just back from Mothercare where we tried a number of different seats. Hope the following info is useful other IS owners.

Mothercare suggested 4 seats that may be compatible with the IS (Britax Eclipse, Maxi-Cosi Priori XP, Maxi-Cosi Tobi, Maxi-Cosi Priorifit), we tried all 4. The Eclipse and Priory XP were not compatible due to the possibility of buckle crunch. This is where the seat shell can press down on the belt buckle in an accident and release the belt and the seat. It's difficult to see how this will happen until you see the seats fitted - once you do you can see there's not a lot of clearance between the seat and the buckle.

We found that either the Maxi-Cosi Tobi (belt secured) and the Maxi-Cosi Prioryfit (belt or Isofix secured) both fitted with no issues. In the end we went for the Prioryfit - more money but the Isofix connectors seemed easier than messing with seat belts.

We did notice that the Isofix connectors on the IS are rather off-centre to the seat which makes them a little difficult to find. So the seat ends up pressing on the central hump of the seats. However once the support leg is adjusted correctly the seat squares up. I would definitely recommend some kind of seat protector as all the seats left marks on the leather.

If anyone is reading this at the time of posting, Mothercare had a sale on so we got the seat cheaper than internet prices.

kev dood · July 13, 2009

I had the same issue with my IS (which has no isofix).

The ONLY seat I found that everywhere seemed happy with was the Maxi-Cosi Tobi seat as this is one of the only seats specially designed to fit cars that suffer buckle crunch (which on the IS is due to the length of the seatbelt for the buckle side!