Chicco vs Graco ??

dminagil

I am a first time mom and am so overwhelmed with the choices for a car seat/stroller. I had my heart set on a Graco travel system but now I am hearing more raves about Chicco and leaning towards a Chicco Cortina travel system. Thoughts or recommendations? Thank you in advance!!

Meery82

I haven't had much experience with Graco products. Most everything we have is Chicco. It's well made and the car seat base was super easy to install. The travel system is nice. My son loves the stroller. Very comfortable for him.

orangecurls

I love my chicco keyfit. Though if I were to buy a travel system, I would buy the britax b safe and b agile combo. Great stroller and car seat.

jwthoms1

Love our Chicco carseat!  The travel system we got was nice but BIG and took up the whole trunk.  We only used it for a few months.  The Chicco Liteway Plus is amazing (we have the regular Chicco Liteway but my friend has the Plus). It holds the carseat and it's a compact umbrella stroller.  Much more useful for the longterm.  I wanted the big stroller for big occasions like zoo trips. But the umbrella stroller is so much more convenient for short trips, long trips, keeping in the trunk for when ever.

Nothing bad to say about Graco but I love Chicco. 

Katie829

orangecurls:

I love my chicco keyfit. Though if I were to buy a travel system, I would buy the britax b safe and b agile combo. Great stroller and car seat.

This!

I love my b-agile stroller. So easy to fold, easy to steer, easy to snap the car seat in and out of. 

Before I had my eye set on the Britax I was going to get a Chicco Keyfit and City Mini with adapter but Brtiax made it super easy for me.

MMMiller

I'm a Chicco girl all the way.  I have the travel system, and the high chair (from 3 years ago) and they are both still working beautifully.  My sister says that the travel system is lighter and steers better than her Peg Perego.

LittleApple

The Chicco is great, but a lot of people complain that the seat keeps their LO too scrunched and end up having to get a convertible around 4-5 months.

I have a Graco Snugride 35 and I love it.  The base is super easy to install, has a seat belt lock off for seat belt install mode and the sun canopy rotates a full 90 degrees, unlike the Chicco. 

JerseyBella

I'm not a fan of travel systems period. Most strollers have car seat adapters so you can have the stroller you want and the car seat you want. With that being said. If you like the Chicco or Graco stroller you may as well go with the travel system. Chicco has better safety rating so we will be going with Chicco this time around. The Graco snug ride we had with DD was a PITA.

brideinsummer04

Like PP said chicco keyfit has best safety rating. I'm surprised to hear another pp say most babies only fit in it until 4 to 5 months. It goes up to 30 pounds or 30 inches whatever comes first which is much more than graco when I looked unless they have upgraded. ds fit in it until he was 30 inches which wasn't until he was 15 months! Anyway I love the keyfit.

MrsJetSet

I agree with pp. My dd was very unhappy in the keyfit. She would scream when I put her in it. We switched to a convertible at 4 mos. and we were all happier. I read that the graco doesnt fit tiny babies well so if you have increased risk of a small baby, I would skip graco.

LittleApple

Let's get this straight before anyone else chimes in.

Chicco DOES NOT HAVE A BETTER SAFETY RATING.  All car seats pass the same tests and therefore are SAFE.  If they were not safe, they wouldn't be sold.

It does have a higher EASE OF USE rating.  But I still find my Graco Snugride 35 to be a breeze to install. 

cyprissa

The chicco keyfit is great. My DS1 was happy in the seat and made it to 10 months in it but he has a very, very long torso so he was bound to outgrow any infant bucket early. The seat is super easy to install, snaps into the base easily and the quality is great. We are using it for # 2 and it looks brand new. I have a Baby Jogger City Mini so I cannot comment on either stroller.

lynelise04

LittleApple said:

The Chicco is great, but a lot of people complain that the seat keeps their LO too scrunched and end up having to get a convertible around 4-5 months.

I have a Graco Snugride 35 and I love it.  The base is super easy to install, has a seat belt lock off for seat belt install mode and the sun canopy rotates a full 90 degrees, unlike the Chicco. 

Just touching on this, my babies were large, we used our chicco seat past the age of one for both girls. I think it's all about preferences. I HATE almost everything about the graco. Sure it has a larger sunshade, but the things so floppy and lose. I loved that moving the base was never an issue, it by far has the easiest install.
My suggestion, go test both strollers and seats. Play with the seat belts. Open and fold the strollers. See what features are more convenient for you.

brideinsummer04

Many books/websites/organizations rate car seats and give their opinion on which ones are safest. When I registered I did a lot of research. At that time just to name a few, the Baby Bargains book, Consumer Reports, and online from the highway safety division or whatever it's called all rated Chicco Keyfit as #1 in crash tests.

LittleApple said:

Let's get this straight before anyone else chimes in.

Chicco DOES NOT HAVE A BETTER SAFETY RATING.  All car seats pass the same tests and therefore are SAFE.  If they were not safe, they wouldn't be sold.

It does have a higher EASE OF USE rating.  But I still find my Graco Snugride 35 to be a breeze to install. 

brideinsummer04

Just like some models of cars do better in crashes than others, some car seats do better than others in crash tests.

LittleApple said:

Let's get this straight before anyone else chimes in.

Chicco DOES NOT HAVE A BETTER SAFETY RATING.  All car seats pass the same tests and therefore are SAFE.  If they were not safe, they wouldn't be sold.

It does have a higher EASE OF USE rating.  But I still find my Graco Snugride 35 to be a breeze to install. 

lynelise04

brideinsummer04 said:

Many books/websites/organizations rate car seats and give their opinion on which ones are safest. When I registered I did a lot of research. At that time just to name a few, the Baby Bargains book, Consumer Reports, and online from the highway safety division or whatever it's called all rated Chicco Keyfit as #1 in crash tests.

Let's get this straight before anyone else chimes in.

Chicco DOES NOT HAVE A BETTER SAFETY RATING.  All car seats pass the same tests and therefore are SAFE.  If they were not safe, they wouldn't be sold.

It does have a higher EASE OF USE rating.  But I still find my Graco Snugride 35 to be a breeze to install. 

I thought this as well.

LittleApple

lynelise04 said:

brideinsummer04 said:

Many books/websites/organizations rate car seats and give their opinion on which ones are safest. When I registered I did a lot of research. At that time just to name a few, the Baby Bargains book, Consumer Reports, and online from the highway safety division or whatever it's called all rated Chicco Keyfit as #1 in crash tests.

Let's get this straight before anyone else chimes in.

Chicco DOES NOT HAVE A BETTER SAFETY RATING.  All car seats pass the same tests and therefore are SAFE.  If they were not safe, they wouldn't be sold.

It does have a higher EASE OF USE rating.  But I still find my Graco Snugride 35 to be a breeze to install. 

I thought this as well.

False, false and false.  Chicco did not rate better in crash tests.  I would love to see this.  Consumer Reports doesn't rate based on crash tests, they rate based on ease of use.  Baby Bargains does the same thing.

brideinsummer04

All car seats have to pass a minimum safety threshold. Some seats perform better than others, but all are required to at least pass. Just like how with grades a C and an A are both passing, that doesn't mean they are equal. Consumer Reports conducts their own crash tests to determine ratings. Baby bargains uses consumer reports safety ratings in conjunction with ease of use to give an overall score. I no longer have a subscription to Consumer Reports since I already bought my baby gear before DS was born a year and a half ago, so for people interested, you could buy one to see for yourself.

gimmietimmies

brideinsummer04 said:

All car seats have to pass a minimum safety threshold. Some seats perform better than others, but all are required to at least pass. Just like how with grades a C and an A are both passing, that doesn't mean they are equal. Consumer Reports conducts their own crash tests to determine ratings. Baby bargains uses consumer reports safety ratings in conjunction with ease of use to give an overall score. I no longer have a subscription to Consumer Reports since I already bought my baby gear before DS was born a year and a half ago, so for people interested, you could buy one to see for yourself.

Consumer Reports retracted the "tests" they did, as the testing method was flawed, and the data wasn't reviewed by an independent testing lab with an actual safety engineer to correctly interpret the data, which I'd assume they were trying to "go beyond" federal standards and failed to do so. It really doesn't matter it you think seats perform better, because there is no where that states that, not even in the pass/fail results on the NHSTA website. There is no A or C, it doesn't matter if it "made it" passed the minimum, because you'd need to be an engineer to interpret whether or not that number exceeding the minimum meant it would hold up at a higher rate of impact. The point is, when used correctly, all car seats are safe. At the point of failure in any seat, you are very likely to be in a non-survivable accident, so really, no point.

The trick is know when car seats are being used correctly, and based on a minimum reported misuse rate (average) of 75% or better, statistically speaking, some of you on this page are in that group.

OP, I hate most travel system strollers, they are the cheap part of the set, and in general don't hold up well. I've had better luck with strollers that you buy separately and get the adaptor for, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

On the infant car seat set, I would stay away from the Baby Trend Flex Loc, Graco Snugride Classic Connect 22, or Cosco Comfy Carry (rear adjust model, not the Elite), because the first two have really high bottom harness slots which means they don't fit newborns well.

These seats come down to preference and budget, in order of fit (small to large, front to back in a car): Cybex Aton, Cosco Comfy Carry Elite, Graco Snugride 30, Chicco Keyfit (either), Britax B-Safe, Safety 1st OnBoard Air, Graco Snugride 35 and Britax Chaperone (best suited for mini vans or ultralarge back seats.).

I highly recommend getting your information from a tech though, and knowledgable ones. This is what they are trained for. https://carseatsforthelittles.blogspot.ca/

LittleApple

Thank you Gimmietimmes.

gimmietimmies

B-)  Welcome. Consumer Reports drives me BSC.

ellewoodsSC

LittleApple and GimmieTimmies are among the most knowledgeable posters on car-seat issues here on TB.  Yes, some seats do better in crash tests than others, but we as consumers have no access to that info and Baby Bargains is not an authenticated authority on safety or any independent tests.  The authors simply report empirical and opinions based on their experiences and trending consumer opinions.

We bought the Chicco Keyfit 30 and I can definitely relate to issues with the scrunched up fit with newborns and overheating due to the deep bucket seat and fabric.  The Graco just looks more roomy and a better incline for newborns to avoid having their head drop forward on to their chest when seated.