Our baby girl is quickly getting taller and heavier, so when it came time to get a car seat to put in her grandma’s car we had to make sure it met some key criteria. To make life easier for grandma, this car seat had to be easy to lift our daughter into and out of and had to be easy to adjust to keep up with her rapidly changing dimensions. Also, to satisfy a doting grandma, something extra plush and comfortable would be the icing on the cake! The First Years True Fit Premier Convertible Car Seat met all these needs and more.
Pros:
- This is a big, open car seat that makes it really easy to navigate your child into place. With no need to contort your or your child’s body to wrangle her into the seat, your back will be very happy.
- The height of the harness straps can be adjusted simply by pulling levers on either side of the car seat and sliding them up and down. You never have to undo the straps and pull them through the car seat to accommodate your growing child. If you’ve ever had to do this with another model, you know what a relief this is! In addition, you can adjust the position of the connecting belt that sits between your child’s legs to really get the right fit.
- The seat pad is removable and washable, which is great for cleaning off food stains and spit-up, as well as any other accidents. However, do note that the manual recommends hand washing the pad, so it’s not quite as easy as throwing it in the washing machine.
- This seat is amazingly comfortable, especially with the highly padded headrest in place. Before we installed the seat in grandma’s car, we had it on the floor in our living room, and our daughter loved sitting in it. Watching her made my husband and I wish they made the seat in adult size!
- As a convertible car seat, this should be the only seat my daughter ever needs. According to the manual, it can safely accommodate children weighing 5 to 65 pounds. For infants, there is an insert that provides extra padding for a more snug fit. If you’re looking to buy only one car seat, this could be it.
- Installation is relatively easy – at least as easy as car seat installations go. We’ve only installed it in rear-facing mode but imagine front facing isn’t much harder. If you choose, you can install using the LATCH system.
- This car seat is safe. We went to AAA for an inspection to make sure we installed it correctly, and the inspector assured us that there had never been a recall on this model. In addition, this model has a 5-point harness and a flip-up rebound bar for rear-facing mode as extra safety features. As a parent, that’s always very welcome news!
Cons:
- In the installation process, buttoning the fabric cover back down over the seat base is fairly clumsy since it butts right up against the backseat of the car when in the rear-facing position. You have to have really strong and nimble fingers to get the snaps securely in place.
- Because of the tight fit between the rear-facing car seat and the backseat of the car, it’s hard to adjust the harness straps by pulling the strap that protrudes from the foot of the car seat. You can do it, but it’s not without effort.
- The car seat is on the large side. With the headrest in place, it takes up the entire space between the back seat and the back of the front seat. Luckily, grandma is pretty petite. Otherwise, she might have had to sacrifice front seat legroom for the sake of the car seat.
All in all, this is a top car seat. It’s safe, it grows easily with your child and it is the most comfortable looking car seat I have ever seen. A great car seat and possibly the only one you’ll ever need!