Car Seat Booster Combo Seat

A few years back, I tested out the original Britax Frontier and was pretty disappointed. Britax had highly touted the seat as a breakthrough crossover and although it covered a wide range of sizes, it was very difficult to install and many parents who purchased it were frustrated with the process and just ended up returning the seat. It was one of the few Britax seats that I told people to avoid. However, the market for crossover car seats has really heated-up and Britax took their lumps, listened to customers and came back with a much improved product offering.  The five point harness seat capacity allows your child to remain harnessed up to 85 lbs or in a booster mode to 120 lbs.  The timing is good as my daughter (who is in a booster) carpools now and the older kids really hate using the five point harness in my son’s convertible seat.  The Frontier 85 gave us the option to have a seat for our four year old that he can use as a five point harness and then also use as a booster for my daughter’s friends when needed.  

Right off the bat, I installed the Frontier 85 very snuggly in less than a minute, which was something I could not say for the old version after trying for an hour. I also noticed all the carefully posted instructions for both the long path and short path installation options. The adjusted belt path, lower seating profile and permanent cup holders are also key improvements that I noticed over the previous model. Other important changes from the original Frontier include: 

• The slots for routing the lap belt for harness mode installation are improved and allow for much better access and leverage for tightening the LATCH or seat belt.
• Harness weight limit increased from 80 to 85 pounds
• Top harness setting up almost 2″, from 18.25″ to about 20″ seated height.
• Seated booster shoulder height limit from 21.5″ to 24.5″  
• Booster weight limit is now 120 pounds   
• Inset cupholders  
• 10 harness height positions, up from 8 in the original

Kudos to Britax for listing to customers and getting the Frontier right on the second try. The Frontier still tries to be a lot of things at once, but it now does most of those very well.

Devil's Advocate:

The Britax Frontier is still a pretty big seat, if you have a smaller or mid size car, you should make sure that it's going to fit well before you buy, especially if you are putting a seat on either side of the backseat and need the middle for an adult.