Baby Trend Flex-Loc Infant Car Seat, Mesa

I don't generally write reviews but wanted to praise Baby Trend on the design of this car seat. We were directed to it after the January 07 Consumer Reports review showing this as one of only two infant car seats to pass their more stringent crash tests (TV news showed alarming video of various car seats flying around the passenger compartment after being struck by a vehicle).

Compared to our still-new Safety 1st seat, this one is so much better engineered in a number of ways:

1) The base is super easy to install. Click twice into each of the car's two anchor points, then tug on each of the two straps to tighten the base. That's it. Our old seat had paragraphs of confusing directions that didn't leave me as confident as this one.

2) The base has an easily adjustable tilting mechanism and leveling indicator to insure you get the right angle for the baby's head (no flopping). Our old seat had no such system - we used rolled-up towels...Read more

I have had two kids use my Evenflo carseat. I HATED it. It was like they never even tried it out to see how well its features worked. I finally got so sick of it when my 2nd child was 4 months old that I ordered a Babytrend Flexloc. At first I was seduced by the high safety ratings, but even after that Consumer Reports article was rescinded, I still liked a lot of the features.

Pros:
-very comfy seat, good padding
-the canopy is twice as long as my Evenflo so it can cover baby almost completely
- the canopy stays in place; it doesn't fall forward or backward behind the seat
- the tightening mechanism under the baby's feet is easy to reach and VERY easy to adjust to make the straps tighter or looser depending on what baby is wearing
- the harness mechanism is very easy to adjust (the shoulder strap height). My Evenflo had to be rethreaded every few months and even my mechanically inclined husband said it was horrible. The Flexloc is just...Read more

I have a 12 week old and in that short time, the mechanism that allows the handle to rotate forward and back (carrying position to "in the car" position) has failed. Since the product is under warranty I called Baby Trend and they would only help me if I sent the car seat back to them for repair. Obviously, if I do that, I will have no means of transportation for my baby. I would need to buy a new car seat, which defeats the purpose of having it repaired! I spoke with the head of the customer service department who refused to send a replacement. I do not advise buying this or any other Baby Trend product that you cannot afford to lose for a few weeks to have repaired.