Car Seats - bring my own or rent?

[shanac14]

hi, i've read mixed reviews about whether or not to rent a car seat. My concern of course is how dated the car seats are & cleanliness. I've contacted a couple car rental agencies with little feedback. Can anyone share their experience? Thanks in advance

 

[4greatboys]

I would bring my own. You know its going to be clean plus most rental car companies charge about $6 or $7 a day for the seat. Thats going to add up fast especially if you have more than 1 kid that needs a carseat.

 

[hezzie]

Hi,

We just returned from a trip to Tucson and had a rather interesting experience with car seats. We rented a minivan from Thrifty, but brought our own car seats with us. Well, when we went to install my 4 year olds car seat, we found that the Town & Country minivan did not have the ratchet type seat belts (where you pull the seat belt all the way out and it ratchets back to as tight as you can get it) and we could not get the seat belt to secure enough to feel safe driving around with him in it. After the Manager came out and reassured us that the seat belt would lock in the event the brakes were applied quickly (????), we checked a few of their other minivans. We ended up using one with the built in car seats which is something I would look for in a rental the next time. It takes up much less room in the car and had the 5 point harness that our car seat had.

I'm not sure what we would have done if we did not find one with the built in seats b/c I know we would not have left the lot with his seat moving all about. His was the type where the belt hooks through the back of the car seat.

I know I didn't answer your question, but you may want to call ahead to see what type of seat belts you car is going to have. We have never run into this problem before b/c we've always had cars with the ratchet seat belts.

When we have used the car service car seats for our trips to Disney they have always been very nice and in good shape, but then again, they are only used for quick trips to and from the airport.

Good Luck!!

 

[sandyneck]

When we had to use car seats we always rented a minivan from Dollar. They have the integrated car seats in them, so unless you have an infant they are fine. People always say you are not guaranteed a minivan with the integrated seats, but my sister and I have gone a total of 10 times and have always gotten the seats in the van.

 

[momsully]

Many of the new cars are not compatible with older car seats. The LATCH system is in all cars built after September of 2002. In those cars with LATCH you may have problems getting the seat belt to hold a car seat in place. That said we always bring our own car seats as we use them on the plane and the cost savings is significant for a long trip.

 

[mobetsy]

If you do much travelling with car seats, it's well worth the small effort to get one of the metal locking clips that will hold a seat belt tight even if the seat belt itself doesn't have a way to hold tight. Here's a link to one as an example: http://www.babyproofingplus.com/item515.htm

We have a bunch of them around; we got one with every car seat we bought (many!). I don't know if they still come with car seats, but I would think they would; however, if you didn't need it, you might never have thought about what it was or how to use it! On most of ours, the locking clip was actually fastened in some way onto the back of the car seat, so that it was always there if you needed it.

For the past 6 or 7 years, almost all seat belts will lock into a "retract only" mode if you pull them all the way out and then begin to let the belt back in again; this is the mode you need it in to install a car seat. I could be wrong about all of the newest ones, but the cars I've seen with LATCH still have this feature. In cars older than about 1996, the seat belts can't be pulled out and released into a locking mode (and for some older types of center seat belts that don't have a shoulder strap at all); for those types of belt, you use a locking clip once the car seat is buckled in. The owners manual for the seat should tell you how to do it; it is a major pain in the neck, but it does work.

Here's a description of how to use a locking clip:
http://www.caa.ca/e/news-issues/child-safety/locking-clips.shtml