Britax Frontier 85

Britax Frontier 85 Combination Booster Car Seat

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Britax Frontier 85 Booster Car SeatThe new Britax FrontierTM 85 Combination Harness-2-BoosterTM boasts best-in-class forward-facing five-point harnessed weight capacity up to 85 pounds with an industry-leading 20 inch shoulder harness height. The seat also serves as a vehicle belt-positioning booster up to 120 pounds. Featuring True Side Impact ProtectionTM with one-hand adjustable harness height system.
The new Britax frontier 85 combination harness 2 booster boasts best in class forward-facing five-point harnessed weight capacity up to 85 pounds with an industry-leading 20″ shoulder harness height. The seat also serves as a vehicle belt-positioning booster up to 120 pounds. Featuring true side impact protection with one-hand adjustable harness height system, versa-tether and engineered energy management zones, the frontier is designed to be the safest high capacity seat in the industry. Loaded with comfort and convenience features, such as comfort foam, integrated cup holders and fixed armrests, the frontier is the ideal seat for the child graduating from their convertible car seat without compromising safety.

PRODUCT FEATURES

  1. Highest 5 point harness seat capacity allows your child to remain harnessed up to 85 pounds or in booster mode to 120 pounds
  2. True side impact protection distributes crash forces, shields from vehicle intrusion, contains the head and body, and keeps the head, neck and spine “in true” or aligned, to limit injury
  3. Patented versa-tether introduces a staged-release tether webbing that anchors the top of the child seat at two points to minimize forward movement in a crash
  4. Quick-adjust head restraint and no-rethread harness easily adjust the harness shoulder height and head restraint without disassembling the harness
  5. Tangle free, 5-point harness with 10 harness height positions (up to 20″) and three buckle positions for a snug and secure fit as your child grows.

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Britax Marathon

The Britax Marathon is one of 4 high-capacity convertible car seats that Britax currently sells. The others are the Britax Decathlon, Britax Boulevard, and Britax Advocate CS. The Marathon and Boulevard are also sold with CS (Click & Safe). From what I can tell, the Marathon and the Decathlon have smaller bases for installation in smaller vehicles. The Decathlon has an infant body pillow and multiple buckle positions, but otherwise, it is similar to the Marathon, including height and weight ratings. The Boulevard and Advocate CS are very large yet still have the same child size ratings, but incorporate what they call True Side Impact Protection. The Advocate is their most advanced, and expensive convertible, because it adds Side Impact Cushion Technology.

The Britax Marathon CS is one of three Britax car seats that we actually own. We started with a Boulevard 2 years ago and recently got an Advocate CS and the Marathon CS. We installed the Marathon CS in our Jetta in a forward facing position for our toddler. The Marathon is smaller than the Boulevard and Advocate and it actually fit our Jetta quite well. It wasn’t so tall as to block our rear view at all and the front seat could still be far back enough to be comfortable for adult passengers to ride in. The smaller size was the main reason we decided on the Marathon for our toddler. If we had more room, we probably would have gotten the Boulevard or Advocate, which are both in our larger, Toyota 4Runner.

The LATCH installation took me 5 minutes, no lie. I have some experience installing car seats and I watched the installation video and read the manual before installing so that may have sped up my install time. I recommend that new owners do the same. The push-button LATCH connectors are so easy to hook on and tighten that it was almost too easy and I got paranoid. I took the seat to our local police station for a car seat check and they gave it their blessing.

Our toddler really likes the Marathon and sits comfortably in the seat. The shoulder and belly pads help make it more comfortable. However, the police officer recommended that we remove them because they can hinder getting the correct harness tightness. The Click & Safe system is supposed to help alert you when the correct snugness has been reached, but from my experience, it’s not really that useful.

The service life for Britax car seats are 6 years from the manufacturing date. I had to look this up on their website, which has a lot of useful information including installation videos and user guides. It would be nice to have the expiration date located right on the serial number sticker. Until recently, I wasn’t aware that car seats even had an expiration date. The serial number can be hard to find on the car seat itself so be sure to make a copy of your registration card, which has all of the information on it.

For me, there are only two drawbacks to the Marathon. The first is that in order to adjust the harness height, you have to rethread it. This means that if you have it forward facing, you have to remove the seat to do it. The second, is the price. We could have easily bought two of the Consumer Reports Best Buy recommended Evenflo models for the price of one Marathon CS. We decided on the Britax anyways because of the number of safety features available along with our previous experience with Britax. The fact that the car seat technicians at the police station and AAA both said that they chose Britax car seats for their children, only reinforced our decision.

We are very happy with the Marathon CS. We feel confident that our toddler will be safe and comfortable in the Marathon and that it will easily last the full 6 years of service life. It is not the best value out there for sure, but that wasn’t our number one priority. I can only justify the cost for ourselves and I certainly would not fault anyone for going with better value alternatives.