Looking into car seat for our 1 year old now she's gonna need a bigger one soon. Which go on about how good Isofix is and how much safer it is – but then also madmit on their website that the crashes simulated are quite rare!

Looking at the Maxi Cosi Priori – they do the standard belt one (XP) and the isofix one (Priorifix) – the latter is about £100

Question is – is it worth it?

Any recommendations appreciated – going in a mk4 Mondeo.

Tick

Just got a couple of Britax Duo. They are no 2 in which for that age group and the top one was rated a bit uncomformtable. they are £150 or so at kiddycare and fit straight onto isofix clips

When we were going through the same process I ended up getting 3 Britax seat belt type seats from Kiddiecare.com(?) – at the time (3 yrs ago) my car had an Isofix mount but my Mrs and her Mum (recipients of other seats) didn't so I thought it was easier for me to get 3 the same, that way I could fit them all and be happy that they were fitted correctly. The car seat is in and out all the time in mine cos I work at a garage and my company car is a 'demonstrator' – ie available for customers to drive. I think if we were going through the same process again I would prob go for Isofix for my Mrs and her Mum, just cos the fitting is more solid and they don't remove the seat often. Prob go for another seat belt one for me as they're quicker to get in and out. Hope it helps!

C.

Had a priorifix for our lad – and got given the standard belt one as a hand me down.

once they were in the cars to be honest there was no difference, if you fit the belt one properly it felt just as secure as the isofix version, certainly not £100 better. If I was buying again I'd buy the standard one.

A friend of ours works at the place they test car seats and she put her kids in Britax.

That was good enough reason for us to have a Britax.

Got one of these ISOFIX ones and it's been very good, no complaints and the time our littlest was car sick the the covers and straps all come off and car go through the washing machine.

It also works without ISOFIX

Our friends have a Maxi Cosi one and it's got a foot rest / footwell foot thing that gets in the way

We've got 2 of the XPs. Very secure once fitted, seems just as secure as the isofix car seat we had. Recommended

PS – discount code AF9 gets 10% off at Mothercare over £120

I thought it wasn't that ISOFIX is necessarily safer than seatbelts, just that it was much easier to get it secure. I find there's a knack to most belt seats – you CAN get many of them rock solid but it's not necessarily straightforward. I often refit seats that others have fitted to get them secure.

Aprica here, FWIW. And no I didn't pay full price! If I didn't have Aprica tho I'd get ISOFIX for ease of fitting and transferring ebtween cars.

I have just ordered a Britax King Plus Car Seat for a 1 year old.

Mrs B did the research into it and she seems to like it. That link by the way is the cheapest place she could find it.

As already mentioned, Which? has done many a test on these things and reading the report taught me a lot. British standards testing not including side impacts for a start. Which? testing standards do.

The results suggest that isofix "generally" performs better but that is not to say that some belt mounted seats aren't better than some isofix models.

I'm not saying that Which are perfect in the way they carry out their testing regimes but they do provide some sound scientific basis upon which to base your decision. IMO isofix is way quicker to swap between cars and they can be belt mounted if you don't have the fixing points. I have one of each (didn't have isofix at the time of first sprog) and prefer the isofix for its solidity and ease of fitting (Britax like others on this thread). Having said that, the Maxi Cosi Tobi looks more comfortable and feels fairly solid for a belt mounted option (performed well in the Which? study).

From a safety perspective just yank the belt mounted models sideways (and imagine the door traveling in the opposite direction) for a comparison on side impact performance. Side padding also important as amazingly some seats have very little of this.

Our old car didn't have isofix so the baby seat we currently use is a belt one and that's solid enough.

Britax Duo looks good and got a best buy in Which. Seems a good price compared to the maxi cosi too. It looks very similar to the Britax Safefix – maybe the same just with a footwell leg – got one at the mo and it's a right pain in the ass.

Swapping between cars is not a big deal as we've only one – she'll either be in that or the seat on the back of the bike (which proved equally as difficult to choose!)

no experience of isofix models but we've had a Maxi-Cosi Tobi for daughter no.1 and a britax first class for daughter number 2. Number 3 is getting a maxi-cosi pebble then pearl(now we've bought a car with isofix mounts)

Thoughts on the 2 brands

Maxi-cosi, buckles easier to fasten and less fiddly. straps spring back making it easier to get the kid in. Maxi-cosi generally outperform Britax in the Which? tests.

Britax, buckle release button requires so little pressure it released by accident.

All the Which reports I've seen Britax come out top, and I can't undo our Britax buckle with one hand, just to balance cottonwool's post…

I MUCH prefer Isofix, we occasionally use the belts in our 2nd car and I've never felt it's anywhere as secure as Isofix.
We've got a Duo Plus seat and it's being used for our daughter now, still going strong…and it's been vomited on a few times and it's easy to wash!