The Safe Kids Worldwide website also provides schedules of free car seat check events and locations of inspection stations. Depending on where you live, you may also be able to get a free car seat install or check by your local fire or police department (often by appointment only). Or you could consider hiring an expert to come to your home to do an installation and training on one or more seats; just be sure that the person you choose is a trained CPST. When you install this seat as a booster, you can choose to keep it anchored to your car with LATCH, or you can stow away the LATCH hooks and go without. Next, you route the seat belt through the seat’s rear-facing belt path and buckle it in.
The Extend2Fit Convertible’s harness is easy to tighten around your child—you just pull on the strap located at the front end of the seat, so a snug fit can be achieved without a struggle. When the seat itself needs more cleaning, we take it inside to remove the cushions and wipe down the plastic. We machine-wash the cushions (as instructed by Graco) using regular detergent and let them air-dry overnight. According to the company, graco turbobooster the five-point harness and buckles can also be wiped down with mild soap and warm water. Occasionally, we use an old toothbrush to deep clean the buckles to make sure that they’re free of any sticky residue and able to function properly. Also, if you’re unsure about any aspect of your car seat installation, you can check with your local police or fire departments to get a professional to inspect your installation.
Unlike our top pick from Graco, this Clek seat does not offer a no-rethread harness, a removable seat pad to make cleanup easier, or one-handed handle adjustment, and those omissions are disappointing (especially considering how much this seat costs). But the Liing’s sun canopy is the biggest we’ve seen, and this seat has the longest life span and best warranty of our picks. The Graco Extend2Fit Convertible has a lot going for it, including pretty easy installation, thoughtful features, and great value for the price. But most importantly, this seat excels at keeping your kid comfortable while they ride rear-facing—the safest position for a young child—for longer. Many large toddlers and preschoolers struggle to stay rear-facing in their car seats because at a certain point they start to feel squashed.
It’s not particularly stylish—from a looks standpoint, we prefer both the Graco seat and the Clek seat. The seat cover is made from a slippery-feeling polyester material that’s easy to spot-clean; you can also remove it and machine-wash it on the gentle cycle and air-dry it, if necessary. Unlike with the Graco seat, with this Chicco seat you have to take apart the harness system to remove graco car seat the cover for washing, which does make the process a bit more time-consuming. In 2022, Chicco released the Chicco KeyFit 30 ClearTex, which is the same seat, available at around the same price, as the KeyFit 30. But the seat cover on the ClearTex version is made with fabric that contains no added chemicals, and it has received a Greenguard Gold Certification for lower chemical emissions.
However, we found the Radian 3QXT more difficult to install than other seats we tested; it requires a lot of physical effort to get a snug install. And unlike any other seat we tested, the 3QXT is so top-heavy that it can’t sit upright on its own. So if you need to uninstall it to change the SafeStop or to remove the seat cover, you have to prop it up against something. Additionally, the Radian 3QXT’s anti-rebound bar—an added safety feature that helps to prevent the seat from rebounding in an accident—was not fully flush to the seat. According to The Car Seat Lady’s Baer, that could pose a safety issue if a child rides with their feet tucked under the bar and then is in a crash. One of our favorite infant car seats is made by Chicco, so we were eager to try the company’s convertible seat, the Chicco NextFit Zip.
And unlike the Graco SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX and the Chicco KeyFit 30, the Clek Liing is also easy to install snugly if you’re using it without the base. This is because, like the Chicco KeyFit 35, it has a European belt-path configuration, which provides a more secure fit than the American configuration. The Liing comes with the added safety feature of a load leg, a metal support rod that sits between the car seat and the vehicle floor; in an accident, the load leg absorbs some of the initial impact of the crash and limits the amount that the seat can move. The seat has the same height and weight allowances (32 inches and 35 pounds) as the SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX and the KeyFit 35, and it comes in a range of stylish, high-end fabric options.