Brio Zento
Last week I wrote about rear-facing car seats, about how much safer they’ve proven to be for children under 4 years old, and about how difficult they are to find here in the UK. Since then I’ve received a few different e-mails in support of rear-facing car seats, including one from the lovely Corina of KIDSEN — a cute Scandinavian kid’s shop here in London.
Originally from Sweden (where rear-facing seats are standard practice), Corina couldn’t imagine putting her 2-year-old in a forward-facing seat. So she went on a search for a rear-facing seat which would fit a UK car and ended up buying the Brio Zento.
The Zento is one of the most versatile combination seats on the market. It meets the more stringent Nordic safety standards, it fits most UK cars, and is approved for rear-facing for kids up to 25kg.
I’ve personally seen and tested the car seat and was very impressed. My biggest reservation about rear-facing seats has always been whether my kids’ legs would fit comfortably. But I sat my 2-year-old in the seat and there was plenty of leg room!
The Zento seat is available from KIDSEN here in London, and you can contact them if you have any questions.
-Courtney
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Brio Zento is a good seat but it’s not common in Sweden. There are better seats available. Zento suffered some really horrible reviews a couple of years ago when it broke during overload testing. While this is not great the test was under more extreme circumstances than usual. Seat is still safe but some parents have been scared about the test results.
Zento does not good amount of space but seat shell is still not that high. Using seats like Britax Two-Way or Britax Multi Tech give kids far longer rear facing time. Most kids can easily sit RF at least a year longer than in Zento.
Two-Way and Multi Tech offer the same advantages as Zento in that they can also be used forward facing at a later stage. Time of use will be far longer than with Zento though.
The In Car Safety Centre (www.incarsafetycentre.co.uk) in Milton Keynes also has a very wide range of group 1 rear facing seats, including the Britax ones. They help install the seats in your car.
I agree with Håkan above, there are better seats. I find the Brio to be reasonably difficult to install.
The production problems they suffered a few years ago have apparently been resolved though, and safety wise they are not less safe than other brands.
For tall children, carseat.se recommends Britax hiway, twoway & multi tech. The multitech is now available for sale in the UK as well.