Peg Perego Primo Viaggio Infant Car Seat, Nero Black

Comment: We bought the Peg Perego Uno Stroller and LOVE it...so we also purchased the carseat to go with it. This car seat is heavy and bulky. Not easy to lift and my son has hated it since the day we took him home from the hospital! I agree with the other person who wrote that they curse every time they use it. It is very difficult to latch and the BELTS TWIST ALL THE TIME!!! It is just a pain in the butt. I think I used the "travel system" option twice because that was a freakin pain too. Very disapointed and hope that others look for other safe car seats and next time I will read the reviews!!!!

Comment: I bought this car seat thinking that it was the absolute safest thing out there and was thus willing to overlook its ridiculous weight. Now, it seems that Consumer Reports has other options (the Chicco KeyFit 30) that have the same (if not better) safety rating and MUCH better overall score (not to mention $100 cheaper...)

My #1 complaint is that the belt is really hard to use...especially with a squirmy child who is not very happy about being strapped in...it takes forever to get the snaps into place. I seriously curse it every time.

My baby is 12mo now and about 23 lbs and she's getting too big for it (her feet have to almost straddle the seat!)...but she is pretty tall...We're ready for a convertible seat now.

I may keep this one around as a spare for the next kid, but would not recommend it.

Comment: I purchased this seat for my first child. I was warned that it was heavy and sat very upright but went ahead and purchased it to go with my Bugaboo because it seemed like the nicest seat out there. Big mistake. My daughter hated it from the get go. She sat very upright in it and her head seemed to flop forward before she was able to hold her head up (she literally looked like she was sitting straight up and down). Everytime we went somewhere she screamed. I borrowed my friend's Graco to see if it was the seat and sure enough, she sat in more of a cradle position in the Graco and was quiet as a mouse. She got used to it as she got older but then the weight factor came in. This seat is so heavy that by the time she was 6 months old (and still a peanut at 13 pounds) I could barely lift it in and out of the car. I'm a runner and in pretty good shape so there's no reason I should have had trouble lifting it. I could not get rid of this seat fast enough and now have a Maxi Cosi for my second child that I love (super light weight and cradles the baby).

Pros:
1. It is definitely a sturdier seat than the Maxi Cosi and Gracos. It's made of quality materials (sturdier plastics) so I can see why it's heavy.
2. I liked that I could just wipe the fabric since it's not a cloth material. I didn't have to take the cover off and wash it if my baby threw up. That said, I used the seat during the fall and winter. My girlfriend had the same seat (she lives in Georgia) and said the nylon fabric got super hot in the summer because it doesn't breath like the cloth fabrics do so it may not be a pro for some people.
3. The seat is very cushy; lots of padding.

Cons:
1. My daughter couldn't see around the black wings so she was always looking forward and not to the side or out the window. I'm sure she didn't know the difference but I always felt like she was in a straight jacket. Again, she was small though so perhaps if you have a bigger baby this wouldn't be a problem.
2. As I mentioned, the weight. It says you can use it up to 30 pounds but that really doens't do you any good because you wouldn't be able to lift it. I can't imagine carrying this thing around with a 30 pound baby (plus a 30 pound baby would be too long for it). I ended up switching my daughter to a convertible Britax at 7 months so really I got hardly any use out of it. I used to get so upset when I'd see other people carrying their almost 1 year old kids around in lighter weight carriers.
3. The sunshade is a joke. Most other seats have sunshades that can be pulled forward for more protection.

One other thing to note. I often read on reviews that "this is the safest car seat out there". I am not sure where people are getting that information. Thanks to a good friend we were able to retain reports from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's crash labs and while this seat did test well, it received the exact same rankings as the Britax and Maxi Cosi seats.

Comment: We had a Graco seat for my daughter when she was an infant 5 1/2 years ago. This time around with my son we initially purchased an Evenflo Serenade 35 and were not happy with it so we searched around and found this carseat at Goore's. I saw it and tested it out in person and found that it was indeed much heavier than most other infant carseats--one of the drawbacks I've found, but I will say that over the 5 months we've had it I have gotten a workout lugging it around. A few more complaints--it is sometimes difficult to lift out of the car because of it's weight (and with a 20-lb baby in it it's hefty), so with that said it is being left in the car more often than not for a few weeks now. Also, I like the side-impact "wings" for the safety aspect but I do think they block some of my son's vision which sometimes frustrates him, even at 6 1/2 months old. I gladly put up with these minor inconveniences to have a safe carseat that is very easy to adjust and seems to be comfortable as well.

Comment: Pros
seems very safe
sturdy
comfortable (although a bit too hot)- my son is always swetty after a ride in this seat.
sun-shade is removable - this is a nice one.
attaches to Bugaboo stroller with a special adaptor

Cons
Many design failures:
-> one that seems silly, but it makes it REALLY annoying on a daily use: the straps get twisted very easily, no matter how much attention you put into preventing it. It's not just the straps. The strap that passes through the buckle twists inside it, and the buckle ends up in the opposite direction as it should. When that happens you have 2 choices: put the twisted strap (less safe, more difficult to tighten), or spend quite some time untwisting it.

-> you tighten the strap by it's end that comes out in between the legs of the child. Very often the strap gets stuck inside the gap it comes out from and it takes a while to get it out before you can tighten the straps.

-> Attaching the seat to the base is not so simple. Just the weight of the baby is not enough for the seat to lock into place with the base. You need to go into the car and put some of your weight on top of the seat, so it locks into place. That's not so hard to do, but it's a potential safetey issue. If you don't do it, the seat will be loose and can come out in case of a collision.

-> Very difficult to detach seat from base. I can do it with some effort, but my wife really struggles. You need a strong grip.

-> One of the big advantages for me to buy this seat is the weight limit of 30lbs. This, however is not a big advantage. My baby is 9-months old, less than 20lbs, and he's already reaching the height limit. His feet already touch the seat. So the height is the real bottle-neck. Therefore the larger weight limit is not an advantage at all. Unless you have a very heavy baby.

Overall - very dissatisfied - but not enough to buy a new one. So I kept this one and used it. For my next child, I'll definitely invest in a new car seat.