Evenflo Comet Installation Weirdness

[KathyO]

My friend just e-mailed me this question. It does sound kinda odd. Can any of the CPS techs shed some light on this?

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I bought an Evenflo Comet today. Julia tried sitting in one in the store -- the shoulder slots are even higher than those in the Century Next Step! It seems like a very nice seat.

I haven't installed it yet, but I did read through the instructions. One thing that surprised me: they want the adjustable head restraint of the seat IN FRONT OF where it's being installed to be lowered all the way. In other words, if you're installing it behind the driver, the driver's head restraint is to be lowered all the way. Um, shouldn't the child restraint keep my child's head well back of the seat in front of it? It seems to me the risk to the tall person who doesn't have adequate head restraint would be greater than the risk to the child sitting behind them.

I am not buying a mini van just so I can leave the middle row empty!

What do you CPS tech friends think on this matter? Is it really essential to lower those head restraints?

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On the one hand, I generally figure that the installation instructions are the final word on how to use the seat safely. But on the other, this would seem to suggest a massive amount of head excursion on the part of the child, or an adult head restraint which is going to fly off in an impact... and neither sounds good. What gives?

For what it's worth, the seat has been bought in Canada.

Thanks for any feedback you can give!

Cheers,

KathyO

[Joolsplus2]

Not a tech, but I once asked this question at the parentsplace/ivillage carseat board, when I had my apollo and thought that was a bizarre recommendation. Basically, there's no actual crash data to support this recommendation (same with how evenflo won't allow an RF seat in front of a fold down armrest), and evenflo is pretty much trying to cover all possible scenarios. Anyway, head excursion limits are, in the US, 28 inches with a tether, and 32 inches without one...and that's with a TIGHT installation and a TIGHT harness (and, as you know 80-95% of seats are installed and used improperly, and that head is going to be flying forward a couple more inches). Here's a picture of the futura, which exceeded the standard withOUT a tether, just to give you an idea http://pages.ivillage.com/momika/carseatphotos/id1.html. Anyway, the upshot was, I was personally unwilling to risk the neck of a tall passenger in my car just because of evenflo's unsubstantiated recommendation, so I put the headrest down when no one was in the front, but raised it if needed, and felt fine with that. :). Julie

[KathyO]

The Canadian head excursion limits are almost identical to the American ones, except that we have to use the tether, so they don't bother testing without it. I was trying to imagine a degree of head excursion that would have the child colliding with the headrest in front of them - unless your child is a giraffe, it just didn't make sense! And I'd never heard of problems with headrests breaking off - you'd think they'd have some stress-test requirements as well. I'd love to know Evenflo's rationale for this rule. Thanks for the URL - I spent some time cruising around looking at the photos.

Cheers,

KathyO