Convertible Car Seat for 2000 Toyota Camry. Britax or Cosco?

I am so glad I found this board. My son is almost 10 months and I need a convertible car seat for a Toyota Camry 2000 and for a Ford Taurus 1993. I am considering the Britax Roundabout or the Cosco Triad. Can anyone let me know which is the better choice and why? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[bjessen]

We just went through the same decision. Actually agnozied over it quite a bit. So, I will be interested to see the feedback. I don't know if we made "the better choice", but here is what we decided....

Our daughter is about to turn 6 months and although she is only 14 pds, she is maxing out the height requirement for her infant carseat. So, we needed a convertible as well. We have a 2001 Honda Odyssey and hoped to use a latch car seat. We couldn't find a Fisher Price Safe Embrace II to look at (though I did find a store in northern CA that had it, but didn't want to buy sight unseen), and the Triad and Century seats (with retrofit) were the only other latch convertible options. We finally decided it would either be the Triad utilizing the latch, or skip the latch altogether and get a Roundabout. We decided on the Roundabout. We were hesitant about the Triad (also seemed difficult to find) due to Cosco's many recalls. However, the price was about half the Roundabout (tempting). We decided it would be better to have a non-latch car seat with a company like Britax than a latch with Cosco. We are hoping Britax will come out with a retrofit kit of their own soon so we can use that. I like the Roundabout's extra features like the belly pad and harness system. The seat cover choices are a nice bonus...they also seem fairly plush. Britax also makes the Advantage which is (I believe) a Roundabout with 2 extra features...a head pillow and a sliding height adjustment. We felt it wasn't worth the extra $50 though since when we need to change the height on the straps...it is fairly easy and my husband felt the head pillow would just tilt her head forward a little too much anyway. My husband claims the installation is fairly easy and plans to show me this weekend (we'll see if he is correct). It seems more stable (less slide) than our infant carseat with base which was installed by a technician. I think the extra tether helps a lot. My daughter rode in it for the first time today and seems to like it.

I would try "test driving" both at the store first if possible to check for your son's comfort. If you have a day when you can take both vehicles to the store(s), I would also ask if you could try installing their floor model into each vehicle. Our local BabiesRUs allows such demonstrations, so if you have one near you, or a store that will consider it...take them up on it so you can be assured a good fit. Also, you may have seen on these boards already, but carseatdata.org has an ongoing database of different vehicle make/models and which carseats fit well in each. Good luck!

Thank you so much for your reply. We got the Roundabout too. The Triad seemed really uncomfortable in comparison, there was hardly any padding. We installed them yesterday, and I am really happy with our decision.