For help on how to install a car seat with a locking clip, check out our video here. For help with all things airplane travel and car seats, check out our Wheels Up Course and private graco car seat Facebook group. This seat has 4 recline options for the rear-facing installation. Once the seat is in the most upright recline position, it takes up very little space front to back.
With our younger son, we started using the Graco when he was around 1 year old and still use it in the rear-facing position. We found that, even in this position, there is plenty of room for his legs. We have not used the Graco 4Ever 4-in-1 as a booster seat but are confident that the familiarity of the seat and ease of use will make it the best choice for our family. If you’re looking for one car seat that will last through all your child’s ages and stages, the Graco 4Ever 4-in-1 Convertible Car Seat is prepped to grow with them for ten years. When going from rear facing with the headrest in position eight, our 6 year old doll needed the headrest in the top (10th) position forward facing.
Head over to our YouTube Channel to see the review and installation how-to of the Graco Extend2Fit. The Extend2Fit Convertible has a one-year warranty and a lifespan of 10 years from the date of manufacture. The seat scored well (PDF) in front-impact crash tests conducted by the NHTSA (the agency tests with dummies the size of 1-, 3-, and 6-year-olds), earning strong Head Injury Criterion (HIC) scores. Whenever possible, we sought feedback about the seats from kid testers. It grows with them and changes to a booster when they’re older. The Extend3Fit is a comfortable and better-quality option than most of the competition, and it is one of the best of the Graco options we tested.
But it likely won’t make you shudder when you see it in the back of your car. It comes in several color combinations—mostly subdued variations on gray, black, and white, but turquoise and pink make an appearance, too. The seat padding doesn’t feel quite as cushiony to the touch as padding on graco turbobooster our other, more expensive picks (which add more foam between your child’s tush and the hard seat). The Extend2Fit Convertible’s harness is easy to tighten around your child—you just pull on the strap located at the front end of the seat, so a snug fit can be achieved without a struggle.
There are a few third-party websites that claim to offer objective crash test data that compares car seats. But we at Safe in the Seat ignore that data for a few big reasons. First of all, third-party car seat crash tests don’t actually give us meaningful data! Car seat manufacturers crash-test their products hundreds, even upwards of a thousand times. They crash test the finished product in every single installation configuration using every applicable-sized crash test dummy, not to mention a whole lot of testing at each stage of the development process too.
It is much easier to release, so whatever gets caught during tightening isn’t involved in the release process. Overall, nothing significant stood out for either installation direction, which is not something we can say about very many seats. The Graco Extend2Fit earned one of the highest crash test analysis scores in this lineup. They indicate a potential additional margin of protection over the average seat in this review, where all pass the federal minimum and should be considered safe.