Graco 3 in 1 car seat amazon

I used to hate this car seat - before I bought it. Right off the bat, I disliked that it furthered the (false) notion that kids need more legroom to extended rear face. That aside, it is a home run!

First of all, rear facing to 50lbs/49in for $135 is a steal. It's hard to find a seat that will even forward face past 50in. (Nautilus 80, Diono, and Britax - if you needed to know.) My 5 year old daughter is 90-100th percentile (47in tall and 48lbs). She could technically rear face in this seat, with a belt install. Probably for the next year. That is something.

However, I got this seat for my 2 year old and 8 month old. "Solar" said 2-5 weeks for delivery, but the first seat already came about a week later and the next one is shipping now, so it's an outside estimate. Plus, to get a $180 seat for $135, I'd have waited the 5 weeks, anyway. Bargain! (The price and shipping time have changed since my review. That's Amazon for you.)

As soon as I got it out of the box, I was blown away. One of the things I loved about the competing seat I had my eye on was that it had buckle pockets to keep metal hardware out of the sun and out of the way, but that seat only rear faces to 40lbs/40in and was $180, so I'd have to spend more just to forward face my 2 year old (33lbs 36in) sooner. So, I was delightfully surprised to get that feature in this seat. (I thought the pockets everyone in the reviews were talking about were for the LATCH clips.)

It comes almost fully assembled. You just have to peel the corners of the cover back and pop the cup holders into place. Graco covers are machine-washable anyway, so one might want to take the covers off to pre-wash them, anyway, but the corner gives enough room to insert the cup without removal, if not.

The red looks somewhat orange-red in the photo. It isn't. It's a lighter red than the piping on our other Graco seats, but slightly darker than the photo seems. Definitely not orange/pink.

The padding is blow-your-mind soft and silky. The padding in the headrest (red/grey) moves independently from the rest of the headrest (black), for even more positioning options. The removable bum padding is thick, especially for Graco.

I was so impressed by the seat, I had to fight the urge to write a review before I installed it.

It wasn't very heavy/awkward. I carried it to the car to install it and I have little upper body strength or grace. I wish I could say that it was a breeze to install, but it took a little work - but nothing that would shy me away from it.

This car seat is best for deep seats. I have a Nissan Pathfinder, full-size SUV. I didn't expect issues with space, but I had them. The foot bar makes the car seat stick out, pushing the base off the vehicle seat. The base has a little marker for how far off of the seat it can go and still be safely installed. It also has markers for which of the recline settings are safe for rear facing and ball level.

Long story short, I will never be able to safely install this seat with the foot bar fully extended because all of the safe recline settings still leave too much of the base off of the vehicle seat. This isn't a deal-breaker for me because I know that my son doesn't need any foot bar to rear face, so to get him 1/2 of a foot bar is still cool. He was rear facing in his Contender 65 happily. It's just something for people with shallow seats to consider. But again, even with no foot bar, rear facing to 50lbs/49in for $135 is a steal.

This is my 3rd child's 3rd car seat. My oldest has had 6 and my middle has had 4. They have been installed in countless cars because we rent cars for trips. We have even done three across. I know my way around installing a car seat. This one still took a while to get a tight fit while the latch was connected. Yes, I stood/sat on it and rocked/leaned. The latch even has a handy loop for pulling! I still had to undo it, tighten it, then attach it. No biggie, just took longer. It isn't as tight as my son's belt install, but it moves less than an inch at the belt path, so it's good.

The only thing about this seat that made me uneasy was how short the strap is, the one that provides slack for the shoulder straps. Its's at least a foot shorter than their other seats have been. Then I realized that we never used all that extra slack in their other seats and this shortening may be a good thing. I even put my 5 year old in it, just to see. She fit, with slack to spare.

This may be obvious to most, but this model does not convert to a booster, so you will have to buy a new seat when your child reaches 49in. (The Extend2Fit 3-in-1/All in One does, but this is not that and that is an extra $100-$200 Boosters aren't typically $100 [ours was $40 and highly rated/recommended] so it's a non-issue.)

The forward facing weight limit is 65lbs but most kids will reach 49in long before they hit 65lbs. That is why I didn't get one for my 5 year old. Even forward facing, she would need a new seat next year.

I have owned over a dozen seats: infant, convertible, booster; Graco, First Years, Maxi cosi, etc.; even seats with apps! This is my favorite, and it isn't even the most expensive. In fact, only 3 of our seats have cost less than this one.

I can't think of much else to say about it, but I'm happy to answer questions. :)

UPDATE: I do see what some parents are talking about, with the chin to chest issue. My kids are bigger, have outgrown infant seats, so they have fine head and neck control. I don't know that I would trust an infant in this seat. It's still a great seat for babies outgrowing their infant seats. Also, removing the infant headrest insert helps some. I also didn't have an issue getting a tight fit that passes the pinch test, but again, I can see how small babies might.

NOTE: As far as the negative review about chemicals goes, that study was conducted on 2014 car seats and released in 2015, before this seat was even made. The seat that scored poorly was specifically the MySize 65. A different Graco seat in that same exact study scored better than Peg Perego, Cybex Aton, Orbit, Evenflo, and Baby Trend. The study in no way said all Graco seats were bad, just that the lowest ranked seat happened to be Graco. Also, since those 2014 seats were tested, the use of carcinogens in car seats has dropped, based on more recent tests. Not to mention the fact that ALL car seats have flame retardants, except UPPAbaby. In short, the reviewer cherry-picked outdated data and drew an inaccurate conclusion. The review should be removed.