Customer Reviews

Clek Ozzi Booster Seat in Licorice

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This booster seat is extremely comfortable, durable and has a simple and ellegant design. It looks great in my car and my little boy loves it!
At first, I was hesitant to purchase this booster seat, because of its color. I liked all clek booster seats, but the olli models offered several colors, while "ozzi" was only available in licorice. However, I did not want to spend the extra money for the upholstery. So I thought, why don't I try licorice and see if I can live with it. It turned out that the seat was black. I thought, hmm, this must be a mistake. I must have received the "olli" model by accident, but the original packaging clearly said "ozzi". I highly recommend this booster seat!
Also, if you visit magnaclek.com you can see a side-by-side comparison of the two models. That should help you make your decision.

When I purchased this seat I didn't read the specifications carefully enough. I thought it was priced less than another model just because of the padded armrests and color choices. In fact, the big difference between the two models is their release mechanisms. This seat requires you to press buttons located behind the armrests and under the seat backs on either side of the seat simultaneously to release, which is difficult. Since we intended for this seat to be used in my husband's car on an intermittent basis, this function is especially annoying. My advice - if you plan to remove the seat more than very infrequently, pay extra for the model with the quick release feature. Otherwise the seat seems to be good quality, well padded, and my grandaughter enjoys using it.

We always purchased the Britax car seats which are fabulous. However, when my son started to complain that his Britax Marathon was too tight we knew it was time to move to a Booster Seat. He is 5 3/4 and weighs about 50LBs and is about 53 inches tall. Although he could still fit in the Marathon in his regular clothes, if he was wearing his bulky winter clothes, he could not. When we tried to find a Britax booster seat we felt that they were too big and started looking at other brands. The best one we could find was the Clek Olli or Clek Ozzi (no difference in them except one allows you to stow stuff inside the base and change the cool seat covers. The Clek is great if you have the Latch system because it gives you the peace of mind that it is firmly fixed in place unlike other boosters which slide around. The Clek is easy to fit, it just literally clicks in place and is so sturdy, it is clear that it will NOT slide out of position. My son loves it and can fasten his own seatbelt now. The only difficulty we encountered (which is not a Clek fault) is that the Latch in our Land Rover has no 'give' in it and so it is too close to the seatbelt making it too difficult for my son to belt himself in. We can still use it in the Land Rover it is just that we have to spend a few minutes putting the belt into the belt catch. This is annoying and some other cars may have the same issue, but our Jeep is just fine. It is therefore probably worth borrowing a Clek to see if your car has the same issue. However, the Clek is great. Five Stars for style, comfort and safety!

This is a very well designed unit and fits nicely in the Odyssey. The Saab 9-3 is so narrow that one is unable buckle the seatbelt as the booster covers part of the buckle receiver.

The rigid European Isofix Latch is leagues ahead of all other belt latch systems in terms of safety. These will not loosen and require constant re tightening over time like belt latch systems. The Isofix has been shown to be superior to belt latches in European testing. The rigid Isofix was a pleasant surprise that I did not know was available in the US. While it was a breeze to install in the Ody, it was a difficult fit in the Saab because of the hidden Latch anchors (not the booster's fault).

If you have difficult to reach latch anchors, you might spend the extra money on the Olli with the quick release latch system, it was a real bear to release the Ozzi latch buckle on the tight Saab.

I don't like the arm rests on any car seat and these are like others; hard plastic. I plan to fashon some padding not for the elbows but on the inside to protect the kidneys and spleen. I cut the arm rests off of the excellent Safeguard child seat; something I will not do on this since the rests act as a belt guide.

Here is some data on Rigid ISOFIX vs flexible Latch belts. Copy and paste the link in google.
http://www.unece.org/trans/doc/2004/wp29grsp/TRANS-WP29-GRSP-35-inf19e.pdf

We LOVE this seat because of the LATCH system. It stays on the seat! Plus my 4 year old things it is really soft and comfortable. There is a lot of padding. It is really well made....you can tell it is high quality right when you take it out of the box. Very well designed and made. I highly recommend this backless booster seat!

A note for those of you that are buying this seat for it's good design and solid color: What is not shown is the huge white warning label the covers the entire front side of the seat. It is a federal law to have these warning labels, but they should have put it on the side on a small tag like Graco does. It is a great carseat and very comfy but beware that the photo on the websites is not what it looks like. Also if you have a Land Rover it is very difficult to latch the seat belt due to the short span on the latch bars on the Land Rover. Borrow one and test it before you buy it.

Conventional booster seats never seemed safe to me. They slip and slide, strange that the other car seat companies haven't started making similar products as this one. It makes so much sense and I feel safer for my child. It's a bit expensive, but if you have more than one child, it's worth the investment. I also don't have as much trouble unlatching it as someone else suggested. Highly recommended.

My daughter was ready to move up to a booster seat without the back. I researched around and didn't like the ones I saw. Then I found the Clek seats. I bought the Ozzi to save the money and my truck seats are black anyways. It fits great in the back seat of a 2008 Chevy Crew Cab. My daughter says it is very comfortable and its easy for her to buckle herself into. I do not change the seat around much, so the quick LATCH release on the more expensive Olli is not a big value for me.

The quality is high on this seat and the seat cushion is easy to remove. The cover is black, even if they call it a fancy name like licorice. I love the LATCH system as I drive quite a bit without my daughter and I like the idea of it being locked in if I crash.

Sure the price is twice what the cheap ones are, but my daughter will be in this seat for quite a while and she is worth it to be comfortable. Probably will have to get two, as she now hates the COSCO one her Mom has!

Researched the CLEK booster seats online at consumer sites--including Canadian. These came out on top. We got the OZZI as it was a bit less expensive, but had the same safety and comfort design. The OZZI doesn't have the quick release tab at the front of the seat, but you remove the seat by pressing two little tabs at the rear, where the bars install into the car's seat latch mechanism. As we were buying two--one for our car and one for our son's--we saved a little. It didn't compromise safety, and it's very comfortable. Our grandson loves it!

Pros:

- Stylish, black design seems very well suited to luxury vehicles.
- Attaches firmly in position using rigid LATCH anchor design (not flexible straps).
- Seat cushion is much softer than cheaper options.

Cons:

- Horrible to remove or switch from one vehicle to another.
- Protruding armrests do NOT work with sculpted seat designs.
- Protruding armrests may even obscure correct seat belt anchor location.
- Armrests cannot be removed or adjusted in any way.

I bought these Clek Ozzi booster seats mostly for the stylish, black design, and for the presumed safety of the fixed anchors. The design is, indeed, very nice in our black Mercedes-Benz E-Class with pastel cream nappa leather, "espresso" maple wood and black interior trim (it's a limited edition "Designo" interior). I thought I had found the perfect booster seat for me ... but ...

1) Luxury Vehicles may Have a Sculpted Seat Design!

Because of the sculpted rear seat design, the side body support cushion on either side of the rear passenger seat backrests come into contact with the top of the protruding Ozzi armrests (look carefully at the picture and see how they slope notably backwards, behind the Ozzi seat base). This makes it quite difficult to force the seats into their latch anchors. It basically becomes necessary to push the rear point of the armrests hard into the leather on both sides of the seat until you hear the reluctant "click" of the anchor. We encountered the same issue in a 2003 VW Golf which only has significant seat sculpting on the outer side of the rear seat back (next to the door). It was not possible to use the anchors at all in the VW Golf. This whole issue could be avoided if the armrest design did not protrude so far back behind the seat cushion. The basic, ubiquitous Graco seat does not have this issue (but looks ridiculously ugly with the Designo interior).

2) The Design May Obstruct More Sophisticated Seat Belt Buckles!

Furthermore, again because of the bulky rear fixing mechanism on the Ozzi armrests, it partially obscures the vehicle's seat belt anchor point on the outboard position where there are two seat belt anchors side by side (one for the outer position, and one for the center position). This might not be a problem (especially if you have only one Ozzi, not two), but all of our vehicles (except our old truck) have an angled seat belt latch, so it's not just a flat piece of metal: it's angled slightly to face toward the passenger wearing the seat belt. This angled belt latch design is obstructed by the Ozzi armrest design where the bulky lower part of the armrest meets the base of the booster seat toward the rear. This means that it becomes necessary to put the outboard child's seat belt in the center seat belt anchor on that side. Once again, this whole issue could have been avoided if the armrest were not so bulky and shaped pointing toward the rear, or were not anchored to the seat base so far back.

Remember that the main function of the armrests is as a seat belt guide and force limiter in the event of a collision. They are not really a comfort feature as their name might suggest, so there is no need for them to be so bulky.

3) Not For Those Who Want to Switch Between Vehicles!

Finally, as others have pointed out, the Ozzi anchors can be horrible to release in some vehicles. The easiest way with sculpted seat designs seems to be to force your hand UNDER the Ozzi seat base, and find the red button to push. It's NOT something you want to do in a hurry, and it's NOT something you want to do often (certainly not on a daily basis). You may even graze your skin doing this. In vehicles without significant seat sculpting, which restricts side access to the release mechanisms, it may still be quite tricky to get these off.

FINAL NOTES ...

Buyers, please take note: I would only purchase these seats if you have a bench seat, or a seat with only minimal sculpting of the backrest. Most (possibly all) luxury vehicles are going to offer significant sculpting of the rear seat backrest so that passengers are more comfortably supported. If your latch anchors are very clearly visible, then perhaps this will be less of an issue (since they may not be as deeply buried inside the seat as in some vehicles). These Ozzi booster seats are too expensive to put up with such a design weakness, so they will be returned until I find a better solution.