Consumer Reports New Cars – November 2019

Based on best practices and child-seat

height/weight limits, these are our

recommendations for which child seats

you’ll need to own and when you should

use them, up until your child can use a

vehicle’s seat belts alone. Remember

that spending more doesn’t necessarily

get you a safer seat, but one that may

offer more features. Many midpriced

models perform as well as or better than

pricier ones. Undamaged seats can be

reused until their expiration date.

Child Car-Seat Timeline and

the Main Seat Types

CR’s Recommended Car-Seat Use for Children Under the Age of 12

■ Recommended Use Period ■ Transition Periods (Safe to use depending on the seat’s

limits and your child’s height and weight.)

Age (Years) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Rear-Facing

Infant

Convertible

Rear-Facing

Convertible

Forward-Facing

Belt-Positioning

Booster

REAR-FACING

INFANT SEATS

(for children

4 to 40 pounds)

$80 to $

CONVERTIBLE SEATS

(for children 5 to

45 pounds, rear-facing;

from 20 to 70 pounds,

forward-facing)

$40 to $

BELT-POSITIONING

BOOSTER SEATS

(for children 30 to

120 pounds)

$11 to $

These allow parents to

carry a child easily, and

most models will also snap

into a compatible stroller.

Though parents may be

tempted to use a convert-

ible seat for newborns, our

tests show that infant seats

provide the best fit for the

smallest babies. Though

these seats are designed to

accommodate babies

that weigh up to 40 pounds,

most children outgrow

them height-wise first.

A convertible seat is

needed for two reasons.

It’s recommended for

kids to remain facing

rearward until at least

their second birthday, and

our tests show these seats

offer better head protec-

tion for 12-month-old kids

than infant seats. The seat

can be positioned facing

forward once a child has

reached age 2 or exceeds

the height or weight limits

of a rear-facing seat.

Children usually aren’t

ready to use seat belts

alone until they’re 57 inches

tall and are between 8

and 12 years old. Boosters

are designed to raise a

child high enough so that

the vehicle’s seat belt

sits correctly. High-backed

boosters are a better

choice because they

include some side bolster-

ing as well as a guide that

can position the shoulder

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12 NEW CARS CR.ORG/CARS

Better Boosters

Booster seats use a car’s seat belt to

protect a child in a crash and raise him

or her up so the belt will fit correctly.

The shoulder belt should sit over the

sternum and the center of the collarbone,

not over the neck or across the arm. The

lap belt should sit low across the upper

thighs, not across the abdomen.

There are three types of boosters:

high-back, backless, and highback-to-

backless (the back is removable). We

recommend high-back models, which

position the shoulder belt better, provide

some side- impact protection, and are

more comfortable for resting kids to

lay their heads.

Proper seat-belt fit is crucial with boost-

ers. That’s why we test how easy it is

to use each seat in five different vehicles,

and how well it fits a test dummy that

represents an average-sized 6-year-old

child. We also move the dummy in

the seat the same way a child would to

see whether the belt stays in place when

the child moves.

Each seat is also subjected to a simu-

lated 35-mph frontal crash to ensure that

load-bearing components and key posi-

tioning features remain intact. All of the

boosters we evaluated fared well in our

structural integrity tests.

Replace any booster that has been in

a crash or is damaged. Some seats have

a expiration date printed on the label or

molded into the seat. Others expire after

a certain number of years, so check the

manual and do the math.

12 NEW CARS CR.ORG/CARS