Cosco High Back Booster Car Seat

This is a solid seat that will fit well in most compact cars.

I ended up sending this back due to the fact that while the product description says it is for 22lbs and up, the box adds a minimum height requirement (36 inches) that I did not see on Amazon. Quite possibly it’s listed somewhere and I missed the line. Just something to be aware of.
Rating: 4 / 5

The top clip is not difficult for me to use but my daughter hasn’t figured it out yet – which is the way I want it. I’ve also used it as a booster and I was satisfied with the way the buckle looped through and stayed in place. I also like the strap on the bottom that allows me to add a little slack or tighten it a little. I think that’s a really important feature – especially in this season when my kid may be wearing a jacket one day and none the next and also if you use the car seat for different kids that are similar but not exactly the same size. I have another car seat without that and I find that sometimes I can’t get it closed because it’s too tight and sometimes there’s too much slack.
Rating: 5 / 5

I hate to say it – but this is the seat that has officially turned me into a Britax snob. The only car seats I had experience with prior to trying this one were the Graco baby bucket and the Britax Roundabout and Marathon. I had heard now and then the frightening statistic that so-and-so percentage of car seats are installed incorrectly and I couldn’t understand how that could be – how hard is it to install a car seat properly? Turns out, it depends on the car seat.

We were recently visiting family back east and my nephew has this particular car seat – one in my father’s car, one in my brother’s car. One on occasion I was going to go somewhere with my dad and rather than go in our car or move our car seat to his car, we opted to use my nephew’s seat for my son. However, it turned out the straps were on the lowest setting which was too low for either of the boys so I took the car seat out to adjust the straps and… quickly came to regret not simply moving our own car seat to my dad’s car.

This seat is a royal pain in the behind to install properly. In theory, it goes in just like a Britax – clip the two LATCH hooks on either side, clip the third hook at the top, put your weight in and pull all the straps tight. However, the way the lower strap went through this seat, I just could not get it tight to my satisfaction – the front would wiggle easily no matter what I did. And the top hook is just pure evil by design – it is very, very complicated to tighten.

I looked in the manual, I looked on line, I called a friend who I remembered had one of these seats as an “extra.” The best I could figure out, this model is sold with two different types of top anchor strap. One has a normal seeming strap that you just pull to tighten… and you lift up on the tightening portion of the strap to loosen. The other has this insanely convoluted piece of metal with several slits in it for the strap to pass through and wrap back and forth and under and around itself. With the latter, you pretty much need to guess how long or short to make the strap BEFORE you install the seat, because adjusting it on the fly is difficult if not impossible.

I checked at Target the other day and the seat they are selling there had the “easier” style of top anchor tightener but I don’t know if they are all like that now. The manual we had for the seat listed both types. Be sure when you buy that the top strap has the easier type of adjuster.

Beyond the top fastener issue, though, like I said, I found it hard to get the bottom strap just right. We had to have a complicated system of towels under the seat in my dad’s car to help it sit in there solid – aside from the positioning aspect of things this seat has two raw plastic protrusions on the bottom which have begun to slice in the seat in my dad’s car (Hyundai Sonata)

One one occasion we moved my nephew’s car seat to our rental car (Saturn Aura) to take both boys somewhere and we had no better luck with ease of installation. It still took a lot of sweating, straining, and swearing to get it in there.

With our Britax seats, I have never had a problem in any vehicle with making the car seats fit, and I can have them removed and re-installed in less than 5 minutes. The Cosco seat drove me crazy. I will give this seat 3 stars because it is affordable and is supposed to meet safety requirements but I would not buy it without making very sure it fits in YOUR car and that is has the easier to use top strap attachment. I would also not suggest it if there is much chance of your having to move the seat frequently. And protect you seats with something if you don’t want them getting torn up!
Rating: 3 / 5

I bought this seat to bridge the gap between baby seat and booster seat for my 17mos old boy. He’s 24 lbs and 32″ and the fit is fine. No issues with the harness system or the installation. It’s not the most stylish seat, but for that price who really cares. Seems comfy, easily adjustable and has a cup holder. The boy likes it better than his Eddie Bauer baby seat that cost 3 times as much.
Rating: 5 / 5

We’ve had this carseat for a few months now. We bought it to go in my husband’s car so we wouldn’t be doing the “change the carseat all the time” thing. Also, because her main carseat in our Odyssey is the Britax Boulevard, which is NOT a carseat to be lugging from one car the the other. Sometimes I ride with friends when we go out and I always use this seat, because it’s easier to move and install. This seat does what it’s supposed to do when it needs to be used (which is only a few times a month). My hubby’s car is a Ford Escort wagon and it’s perfect because the seat is not so big. The Britax would NEVER fit into the Escort! The Escort is a ’98 so it doesn’t have the LATCH system, but I didn’t find it hard at all to get this carseat installed with the seat belt. I did it by myself and got a really tight fit (it barely moved). I was very pleased with that because when it comes to installing my daughter’s carseat I’m fanatical about it being done correctly. I only gave it four stars because of a few things: 1) the straps do get twisted, 2) the plastic strap slots on the bottom sides seem to “pop” off and I have to push them back in until they snap back into place, and 3) I did use this carseat using the LATCH belt in the Odyssey for my friend’s daughter and it didn’t have as tight of a fit as the seatbelt in the Escort. The seat didn’t slide more than an inch at the belt, but I noticed the top of the seat back slid around a lot and pulled easily away from the Odyssey’s seat back. To fix this problem, I simply secured the seat with the seatbelt as well and that helped tremendously! Baby Number 2 is on the way and once he or she outgrows the infant seat, they will be moved to the Britax and my oldest will use this seat as a belt-positioning booster. Anyway, this is a great seat for the money.

Update – November 11, 2008

Since I wrote the original review, I realized that the reason the top of the seat was unstable in the Odyssey’s captain’s chair, was because I did not use the tether on the back of the seat (DUH!). When I used the seat again in the Odyssey (had to clean the Britax), I used the LATCH system and the tether anchor that goes behind the car’s seat, and the thing was rock solid! I also figured out a better way to tighten the LATCH belt too. The seat is still working out great too, although my daughter has just about outgrown the top slot. I really want to keep her in a harness, so I’ve been checking out the new Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 seat. If you’re looking at this one, then go for that one! Just my observation. If Graco had that one out when I needed this one, I would have bought that one! But, alas, there will always be something new and better around the bend! Hope this update is helpful to all you lookers!
Rating: 4 / 5