Customer Reviews

Britax Boulevard 70 Convertible Car Seat (Previous Version), Onyx

5 star:		(106)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was looking for a convertible car seat to replace the infant carrier/carseat for my now 10-month-old son. I was worried that I wouldnt be able to comfortably fit a seat in my 2005 Honda Civic Sedan, and even more worried buying something online that would be more of a headache to return if it didnt fit. Hopefully my review will help someone else decide whether or not to get this seat. These were my concerns:

SAFETY: Having done alot of research as well as actually having seen both a Marathon 70 and a Boulevard 70, the specs are the same, except the Boulevard 70 has the added side cushioning pad around the head (they call it True Side Impact). I put my son in the seat, and having that extra padding means that his little head wont move sideways as much if we get hit in a side impact collision. Of course all carseats on the market must meet the minimum Federal safety standards for car seats, so this extra padding feature is what sold me on the Boulevard (the Advocate also has this plus an additional padding around the side exterior head area but is more $$).

VEHICLE FIT: I am currently using the seat REAR FACING, and it DOES fit in the back seat of my civic sedan. I first positioned directly behind driver seat, which was not good, as I had to push the seat so far I didnt feel comfortable driving (I am about 5'5"), but sliding the seat over toward the middle allowed me to move my seat back to its normal position (I like to have the seat reclined alittle). This works fine for me, as there is still enough room for my 8 year old son to sit. A larger person sitting back there may not be as comfortable though.

INSTALLATION: Compared to other seats Ive used/installed, this one seemed relatively easy to get a tight fit, with very minimal movement (I got it to less that 1/2" movement at the base on my first try). I installed the seat using the lower LATCH connectors, which clicked into the car's LATCH anchors very easy, and clicks like a seatbelt. It was easy to tighten the belt, but NOT so easy trying to loosen it. I did not try using the seatbelt method. At the bottom of the drivers seat (where the seat is bolted to the floor), I popped off the plastic piece to attach the tether. I did put a rolled towel at the crack of the seat to help level it, which is acceptable per the instructions I believe.

EASE OF USE: My back seat is small, so I have to hold my son in a lying position and twist my body a bit to get him in the seat. Uncomfortable for now, but it will be easier when he can hop into the seat by himself in a few months.The quick adjust feature means that I wont have to remove the seat and re-thread the harness straps when my son gets taller (which is a pain to do, and I dont have to worry about it getting all twisted or not securing it correctly). The rubber "HUGS" things attached to the harness is supposed to provide additional torso support in a frontal or rear crash, but I think it also helps keep the straps from getting all twisted. Britax touts having these little velcro pieces on the side of the carseat and on the harness that is supposed to help you by keeping the harness from falling back into the seat (which is a pain trying to pull out from under the baby), but it doesnt help much - the velcro seems too short or positioned in the wrong place or something.

COST: I got my first seat from Amazon for $229.00 with free shipping. The second seat for my husbands vehicle from Amazon for $244.95 also with free shipping. Locally the same seat costs over $300 plus tax. My local Sears is selling the Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite for about $180, and Walmart is selling the Graco My Ride 65 for about $150. For me, the extra safety and convenience features Im getting with the Boulevard 70 are worth the extra cost.

ARRIVAL: The seat arrived via UPS fairly quickly (it took 4 days from Pennsylvania to Hawaii with free super saver shipping), with no damage to the box or the contents.

I hope that my review may help somebody out there in some way. We all have our own reasons we choose one thing over another, but for me, I am so pleased with this seat that I just purchased a second Boulevard 70 for my husbands vehicle. Sorry I didnt think to take any pictures. Ive seen people putting their pics on here, so if I can figure out how, I will add some.

While $300 is a lot to spend on a car seat, the Boulevard has a bunch of extra features, such as added EPS foam to protect baby's head in a side-impact crash. There's a removable infant pillow so that babies fit more securely in the seat. A belly pad and padded harness also add comfort. I feel like my little guy is completely protected.

pros

* Side-impact protection
* Lots of features
* Easy to adjust
* 70-pound weight limit
*Very sturdy/solid
*Fits perfect in my small SUV(Dodge Nitro)

cons

* Side wings can block child's view
* Heavy and bulky
* Very expensive

I purchased this carseat for my son who just turned a year old and has outgrown his Graco Snugride. I found it a little difficult to tighten the straps and had to get my husband to help me, but other than that, this is an excellent carseat that lives up to its reputation. It is quite heavy, which I think is due to the new steel frame and construction. The padding is also very nice, my son fell asleep in it the first time I put him in it! There are these little velcro pieces on the side that are meant to keep the straps out of the way when you are getting your child in and out of the seat, but for some reason on mine (and on another Blvd floor model in BabiesRUs), it was hard to get the velcro pieces to align. However, that would be my only minor complaint about this seat.

I was in a car crash yesterday and probably totalled the car. The airbags were deployed and I suffer cuts and bruises all over (hands, knees, legs, forehead). My 4.5 years old twins were sitting at the backseat in their Britax Boulevard car seats and both walked away without a single scratch or bruises from the harness! I was amazed considering I was having a hard time moving my left arm due to impact from the car seatbelt. I know this cars eat is expensive but it certainly was worth every penny. I'll order another set of Britax car seats/boosters for the twins today! Hope this helps.

So far, so pretty-good with the Boulevard for us. We chose this seat based on CR reviews, Baby Bargains reviews and the fact that it was easy to adjust the straps, both for tightness and height. Our son seems very comfortable in the seat and naps in it with no issues. However, the seat has some drawbacks that really shouldn't exist considering its exorbitant price.

- The seat is easy to install, but very heavy and very large. We have a 2010 Toyota Rav-4, but still think that the seat is overly large. It fits, but I don't think we will be able to use the same model as a second seat in our smaller sedan.

- The straps twist CONSTANTLY which, again, shouldn't be an issue since this was a $300 car seat. Seriously, they couldn't have solved that problem with a small fraction of my purchase price? They are also difficult to keep out of the way while setting my little guy in the seat, so I have to dig them out from under him (before untwisting them) almost every time. They did include velcro on the straps and seat to try to help with this issue, but it is basically useless.

- I don't know if it is due to the overall size of the seat or if it is just a bane of rear-facing seats, but it is awkward to get our son in and out of the seat in the rear-facing position. Even at 10 months, he HATES getting into and out-of the seat, though he is fine once he is in and buckled. I almost have to hold him at arms length, drop him in and then lean around the seat and into the car to fasten the harnesses. Super annoying.

- I have not yet tried to remove the seat fabric for cleaning (and after reading some of the other reviews, I am not eager to try it) but the top buckle is a pain in the neck to clean if anything gets in it. Again, this could be the case with any seat, but after spending 20 minutes trying to scrape out spit-up, I keep a bib in the car to put on my son immediately.

All that being said, I am fairly happy with the seat and since our son is quite tall (almost 34 inches at 10 months), we needed a bigger seat to accommodate keeping him rear facing as long as possible, so this was probably our best bet.

My little one threw up in this car seat and while taking it apart to clean it, I noticed a significant amount of fraying to the adjustment strap that is located at the foot of the seat. You would never see this under normal circumstances!! It was only because I was taking things apart that I found the problem. It had frayed approximately 25% of the way across in only five months of use. The danger with this is that this strap is what anchors the shoulder straps and the fraying could cause the shoulder straps to fail in a crash. I will be contacting Britax about this and notifying the NHTSB.

Our daughter is 9.5 months old and about a month ago we decided it was time to start transitioning to a convertible car seat. We love her Chicco Keyfit infant seat and while she still fits into it safely, the seat plus the baby had just gotten too heavy to lug around. Since my husband drops her off at daycare and I pick her up we decided to install the convertible seat in my car and keep the Keyfit docked in his car until she was closer to outgrowing it.

I did near-obsessive research on convertible seats, since our goal is to keep our girl rear facing until at least 2 years old and ideally until she reaches the height or weight limit of the seat. In the end, our choice was between the Britax Boulevard 70 or the Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL and after using the seat for a month now we're very happy we chose the Britax.

INSTALLATION
Our Boulevard is installed in my 2010 Chevy Equinox, which has LATCH anchors only in the two outboard positions. Since we only have one child right now we decided to put her car seat in the center seating position, which requires the use of the seatbelt to install the car seat (as GM does not allow borrowing of lower anchors).

I was able to get a fast and very solid install in the center using the seatbelt. This was checked by a tech at a car seat check and they confirmed that I had installed the seat correctly. Due to the angle of my vehicle seat there's no need to use a pool noodle to get the correct angle for our older baby. The seat is tethered with the VersaTether using the Swedish method (the D-ring is looped around the front passenger seat track). Unfortunately in my car this means that the front passenger loses a little bit leg room, but it's worth it to have her seat tethered rear facing and is not objectionably close to the dash for my 6' tall husband.

Britax has a good user's manual in my opinion, and the installation videos on their website and Youtube channel were also helpful.

I did attempt a LATCH installation outboard and when tightening the LATCH belts to the smallest limit I still could not get the seat tight enough. This is because the back seat of the Equinox is slid all the way back the the tethers protrude quite a bit from the seat bight. However, I've installed the seat using LATCH in two other cars with no trouble. I personally prefer the seatbelt installation anyways. I have not attempted a forward facing install with either LATCH or the seatbelt.

USE AND COMFORT
The baby is very comfortable in the Boulevard. The no-rethread harness makes it easy to adjust to the proper height; at or below the child's shoulders when rear facing. The seat cover is easily removed without uninstalling the seat, and the Cowmooflage print is super cute!

The harness is easy to adjust and to use. The belly pad is a nice touch especially as the weather is getting warmer (the buckle will be hot!). There is a torso comfort pad (which we removed) and there are comfort pads on the shoulder straps above the HUGS pads. The chest clip is easy to use although the HUGS pads do slide around a bit underneath the chest clip. The headwings have the additional benefit of providing a comfortable spot for her head to rest since she often naps in the car on longer trips (this was the deciding factor between the Boulevard and Marathon). The straps are decidedly non-twisty and I like the little velcro tabs to keep the harness open to get the baby into the seat. It is a bit awkward to get her in and out but that's due to the Equinox's sharply slanted C-pillar - this would be an issue for any rear facing convertible seat in my car! Front-to-back the seat takes up about the same amount of room as the Keyfit and base.

SAFETY
I am a mechanical engineer and therefore I like to think that I know a bit more about dynamics and mechanics of materials than does the average parent. The Britax seats appealed to me because of the use of steel in the seat construction. While all seats on the market in the US must pass the same crash tests, I personally feel that our child is safer in a seat that is steel-reinforced over a seat that is all plastic construction. The steel reinforcement does make the seat heavy, but not as heavy as the Sunshine Kids Radian. I also personally prefer using a seat with anti-rebound features. In the US the only convertible seats that can tether rear facing are the Britax seats and the Radians (the First Years True Fit Premier has an anti-rebound bar). All things equal, I wanted a seat that tethered.

It is a no-brainer that extended rear facing makes toddlers safer in the event of a serious collision. I had read that the Britax seats did not have the highest harness slots on the market and that some car seat advocates felt this was a negative. Our girl is on the lighter side in weight and of average height, so getting the seat with the absolute highest possible harness slots and weight limits was not our paramount concern. However, we did want a seat that will likely get her to 2.5 or 3 years old rear facing, and the Boulevard should be just fine for our rear facing goal.

OVERALL
This seat is easy to install, easy to use, comfortable, and safe - what's not to like? We are so happy with the Boulevard that my husband will be getting a Britax Marathon 70 for his car soon, and my parents have purchased a Marathon 70 for our baby girl to ride in when they're babysitting.

Installation was a breeze and the carseat looked so comfortable! My son falls asleep in it everytime. I had read where this carseat was extremely bulky. I have a Nissan Murano and there is plenty of room for other backseat passengers. I bought this carseat from Amazon about two weeks ago and I checked back to see if the price was the same and it had dropped about $67 so I returned it and got a lighter color (waverly). All in all this is the best carseat out there, NO DOUBT. I have tried a few and they are either uncomfortable or I have to put towels under the carseat to get them secured. I would never think that carseats are made for you to have to put TOWELS underneath them, thats crazy! All other carseats moved around and I could never get them tight. This carseat doesn't move AT ALL!! Get it, you won't be disappointed!

I was unable to tell from the pictures online what the exact color of this seat was. The piping looked BABY BLUE but if you click on the "swatch" photo it shows the piping being purple (on some other sites). I called Britax to verify the color and they told me purple, so I ordered it. I have a baby girl and didn't want blue after 2 boys, lol. The piping is actually the brightest shade of purple, with the leaves being a mix of "dusty purple" or "muted purple" with the other leaves being a nice shade of blue. The background is black and the outer side is grey, not baby blue. the dominant color is definitely purple and since I'm not crazy on pink, this was perfect to go with her Graco Metrolite travel system in "Regal" (purple) along with her periwinkle nursery, etc. ;)

I've had Britax seats in the past: Roundabout, Marathon, Husky and I'm sure this Boulevard will do just fine! :) So glad this pretty style just came out as I was debating for MONTHS which seat with which cushion to get ;) This cushion is not as plush as some others but seems like good quality and like it will be easier to wipe messes off/more stain resistant hopefully!

I took outdoor & indoor photos to show the colors in different lighting, and wrote this review to help others who were wondering about the colors like me! I hope no boy moms order it thinking it's blue, and then are unable to return it! :(

I own the Boulevard 65 and now the Boulevard 70 and am very happy with both. The benefit of the 70, other than the changed weight limits, is the the more compact size without losing any safety features. Installing the car seat in the middle of the backseat now leaves plenty of space in the backseat for 2 adults. With the 65, which is still an excellent car seat, there was less room and it made it tight for 2 adults in the backseat with the car seat.