Help! Why can't we make the carseat work?

[Hallie_D]

Elijah, our 3.5 yo, is in a Graco Platinum Cargo. At 26 lbs or so, he is in the 5-pt harness. We purchased it 3-4 months ago, when Noah outgrew his infant seat and we switched him to Eli's RA (rf, of course) and we needed something new for Eli.

At first everything was fine, although it wasn't nearly as easy to use as the RA. But suddenly, about a week ago, we stopped being able to tighten the straps when Eli was sitting in it. When the seat is empty, we can loosen and tighten the straps with ease--but when he is in it, they will barely tighten at all. We have un-installed and reinstalled the seat 4 times now, taken apart the straps and made sure they aren't twisted, played with the red thing on the bottom that changes the incline--NOTHING WORKS! It is a real problem because now that he is wearing a warm jacket, we can't tighten up the straps enough before we put him in, and still fit him in. So yesterday and today, we've had to leave the straps looser than they should be (several fingers fitting between the strap and Eli).

DH is ready to throw the thing in the dumpster, but the reason we bought it, and not another Britax, is for financial reasons--we can't afford to throw $100 away and start again. Does anyone have any idea of what is happening? I'm going to try to contact Graco customer service tomorrow, but I'm hoping someone else has experienced something similar or can offer a temporary solution so I'm not terrified all the way to daycare and back tomorrow.

TIA!!

[Joolsplus2]

Can you raise the harness up to the next slots? They might be a little high (weird looking, but not unsafe), then the splitter plate will be on a different point in the seat and might not get snagged anywhere back there. But in the meantime, get it tight, with the coat UNzipped...that way the harness is close to his body and the coat isn't making the harness looser than it should be, and then don't adjust it again... if it fits over a sweater and shirt layer, that's as thick as you'd ever want clothing to be under the harness, anyway. Once it's adjusted to the his regular layer of indoor clothing, you don't have to adjust it again.
Also, do you have a different position in the car you can install the seat? The harness or splitter plate might move more freely in the middle seat, or in the window seat, whatever's different.

Of course, DO call Graco and complain, you aren't alone in this, and they should hear ALL the people with problems tell them about it so they can re-design the seat.

Fingers crossed for ya!

:)
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 2 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx

[Hallie_D]

Thanks, Julie, We did raise the harness to the next slots last night, and we can't move the seat to another position in the car--it is in outboard position on the driver's side and the RA is in the passenger outboard position. We are in a 2002 Subaru Outback and the middle "seat" won't fit a carseat, especially when there is another carseat in the car.

We just cannot figure out why the straps won't adjust with weight in the seat--it seems like a fatal design flaw that will pretty much guarantee that most people will be unable to use the seat correctly.

Any tips on how we can adjust the belt tight enough and then squeeze him in? We're in Chicago and it has been in the 20's and 30's the last few days--his winter coat is bulky enough that when we try to tighten the straps before seating him, we can't get his arms through the straps. We park in an outdoor lot, not in a garage, so we can't really take his coat off to put him in the car--it is too cold (and only getting colder).

Thanks again,

[strollerfreak]

I've had 2 UltraCargo's for my son's (almost 5 and almost 3) and they swap in and out of the same one now. I too have had this problem off and on. At times, I physically could not tighten the straps as well, I had to have my husband do it. And then for some reason unbeknownst to me, I'd be able to do them again. One thing that we did notice was that when my husband would install the seats in "trooper tight" (ie: so tight that it would physically leave dents in the vehicle seat) we would have MORE problems...we figured that somewhere the harness was getting caught on something. If we installed it tight (within the 1" rule) but not "trooper tight" it didn't seem to happen as often. Also, make sure that the splitter plate isn't getting caught on the vehicle belt that is used to install the carseat...I've done that before too and when that happens even my husband wouldn't be able to tighten the harness.

If I'm reading Julie's post correctly, she isn't recommending totally removing his jacket, just once you get him sitting in his seat in the car leave his jacket ON, but unzip it so that the "front layer" isn't within the harness, that the harness is actually sitting on his chest. After he's buckled in, then you could try to zip his coat back up partially. Maybe even give him a special car blanket that only he can use, and it stays in the car??

I totally understand the cold factor...we live in Michigan, and this cold spell totally caught me off guard too. I'm in a quandry as to what to do with my oldest son as he's really getting too tall for the UltraCargo with his coat on (he only had like 1/4" of height left without his coat on) but we need to be able to get 3 across in a Ford Escape, and it's narrow and it works so well with our other seats!

Anywho...I digress, and I hope you can figure out a way to make it work! Maybe even switching the UltraCargo and the RA would make a difference, the angle of the belt coming into the carseat will be different.

[Hallie_D]

Thanks, Mel! It is so nice getting responses from two CPS techs!

I did call Graco yesterday and they suggested putting something hard (like a sheet of stiff cardboard) on the seat of the car and then placing the carseat on top of that--the customer service person was pretty certain that it was getting hung up on the underside. We'll try it today. But I think you might be right about it getting caught on the vehicle belt. Too bad the seat doesn't install well with LATCH.

Yesterday we pre-tightened the straps and practically needed a shoehorn to get Eli's arms in, but once they were in, it was fine because his coat was unzipped. Luckily he's pretty relaxed about being pushed and pulled into his carseat.

Thanks again for your response. It is nice to know we are not the only ones having this problem--in the sense that we don't feel like idiots who just don't "get" how to do this--but on the other hand, it is not good to think that these carseats are so difficult to use correctly. The statistics are already bad enough; it shouldn't be so easy for people to use it incorrectly.

[lynsgirl]

Hi there. I'm new to this board, but I know both Julie and Mel and I've been in the unfortunate position of squeezing 3 seats and kiddos in our Subaru Legacy :-P.

As a tech, I have to say I would not put the cardboard under the seat. The CSR from Graco should not have recommended that...sigh.

I do agree that probably something is getting hung up somewhere against the seat. One other thing to check is that sometimes the adjustor strap (the one with the splitter plate on it) can get underneath the part of the harness that loops under the bottom of the seat. Make sure there's nothing between that part of the harness and the seat shell. And like Mel (or Julie?) mentioned, make sure the seatbelt isn't getting fed through half the harness on it's way through the beltpath. I've done that before and um, yeah - it causes problems LOL.

It isn't as hard as it first looks to get a seat in the middle next to an outboard one. Move the outboard seat over just a hair and install it and then install the middle one. Yes, they will touch and possibly even overlap. But since you've got a RF Britax (can be tethered), being possibly overlapped by a FF seat isn't a problem, since rebound isn't an issue.

One last note on the cold issue. My dh is in the Navy, so we currently live in the southeast, but we grew up in northern MN and we visit our families there several times every year. If I have to have the kids keep their coats on, they unzip them and buckle up and then rezip over the harness, like Mel was mentioning.

I hope this helps a little!

Amy :-) CPST and Mom to 3 great kids, all in seats

[Joolsplus2]

Thanks, Mel and Amy! You guys are the best :)
Julie CPS Tech and mom to 2 in seats
http://www.cpsafety.com/articles/RFAlbum/SarahMA.aspx