Customer Reviews

Sunshine Kids Radian65 SL Convertible Car Seat, Champagne

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I own two of these seats, I've installed them forward facing in several vehicles. The seat fits well in every vehicle I've installed it in, the latch and tether systems are easy to operate. The seat folds so it is easy to transport and store. The seat is lower and narrower on the outside but wider on the inside than any other car seat I've owned (mostly Britax) so with a little planning it is easy to fit additional seats on either side of it. It is by far the most solid feeling car seat I've owned.

No complaints from the child in the seat, so it must be comfortable. He has been in it for a few five to eight hour stretches.

It is also worth noting, I called the technical support line with a rather obscure question about the latch system (specific to a vehicle) and the technical support person I worked with was both knowledgeable and friendly. It is rare these days to call support, get right to a human and get excellent service.

Excellent product with a company that stands behind it.

If you have an average-to-smaller vehicle, need to take your carseat on a plane, or have lots of patience (for the frustrating belt system), get this car seat.

PROS:
*Strong, safe (and heavy) metal frame. To me, its weight is proof of it's superior quality, but my wife is always surprised at how heavy it is.
*Folds for easy transport (well, easy if you can secure the belts and can comfortably lift and carry a 25 lb seat).
*Plenty of rear-facing legroom for our 17 month old (compared to the Recaro Signo G2).
*Sleek, slim design makes it easy to get kid in and out, and for adults to sit on either side.
*Supposedly the only car seat tested to have no hazardous chemicals present in the fabric.

CONS: There seems to be a problem with every belt on this seat:
*When transporting the seat, the LATCH belt slides out, forcing you to try to re-thread it through the thin passageway in the bottom of the seat, which is quite difficult, unless you're Houdini. It should be permanently attached (like on the Recaro).
*LATCH belt is attached to another belt that dangles and gets in the way when trying to fold or unfold (and latch) the seat.
*Very difficult to adjust the shoulder strap height (unlike Recaro's very convenient knob). On the Sunshine Kids, the metal bracket should be a T bracket, with one belt on each stem, but it's more like a J. It's not easy to get the belts off the stem when you need to adjust the shoulder strap (strong needle-nose pliers help, but it shouldn't be this difficult). Also hard to cram the belts back onto one stem.
*When rear-facing, most of the unused anchor belt is just hanging off the back as you can't shove the whole thing in the little plastic pocket. Unsightly (which doesn't really bother me), but gets in the way and the metal buckle clanks against the seat, although only when car is in motion.
*When rear-facing, the unused Safe Stop belt also has nowhere to go, although the manual says to put it in the same pocket in which the anchor belt doesn't even fit. Also clanks around when driving.
*The crotch belt... if you can somehow fit your hand through the above-mentioned LATCH belt passageway and successfully unhook and adjust the crotch belt, just move it to the furthest position so you never have to go through this process again.
*Not a very tight fit (too much play) in the rear-facing position, again, compared to the Recaro, which doesn't even budge.
*The belt that keeps the seat in the closed position (for transport) "stows" in the seatback, creating a hump behind your baby's head or back.
*I sent Sunshine Kids a simple question from their Customer Support page, but they never responded. I'm glad to see another reviewer had better success on the phone.
*A popular consumer reporting periodical and the NHTSA rate this very poorly for "ease of use." I would definitely agree.

***UPDATE 8/2/11: Our kid is almost 3, and obviously forward-facing. It's a good seat, and fits snug into our car's back seat. Our kid wishes it had an armrest (like daddy's), but the low profile makes it easy to get in and out. The belts are still unwieldy, especially for removing the cover for cleaning, and to adjust the shoulder strap height. What a dumb design for the shoulder strap stem in the back.

I'm writing to toot the horn of my Sunshine Radian 80, I bought it for my daughter when she outgrew her infant car seat and she rode rear facing in it for a long time and it was a squeeze in both of our SUVs...but that is the only negative.

Last Friday I was in a Front end collision and my daughter was 3yrs, 364 days old, 41" and 36lbs, came out completely uninjured and no worse for wear. I felt complete confidence that she was going to be okay. I'm sad to see our trusty friend get retired, but it was worth every penny to feel such security and in the end have the seat do what it was intended to do.

The seat installs like a dream, once you know how to do it. Folds fabulously and we took it on several plane rides, I had bought the travel bag and that made things even easier.

I highly recommend this car seat to anyone, it's slim lines allows for comfortable installation of three in a row.

I would purchase one in a heartbeat if I had another small child.

Being my dd just turned 4, I opted this round for the Britax Frontier 85, similar lines, ""cup holder"" with the benefit of the 5pt harness till 85lbs and the booster option up to 120lbs. If Sunshine had one just a little more similar I wouldn't have hesitated buying theirs.

Hope this is helpful to someone, I always read the reviews and hope you gain some personal knowledge with this.

Oh...the fabric has held up to vomit and all sorts of nasty and comes out of the wash beautifully, just line dry as not to shrink!!!

Hoping our new britax will be just as good.

Good luck.
Tiffany

We bought this for air travel and for a small Subaru wagon after our daughter was spilling out of her infant seat. It has many installation options, so you have to find the right one in the manual. There are little quirks that you can't gloss over, e.g. you have to use the safestop accessory in forward facing <40 lb installation. The LATCH system works fine, and I finally figured out that the "top tether" in my cargo area wasn't just some random tie down. I tried to mount this seat rear facing at first, but there was NO way I was going to get a passenger in the front seat, because it was slid all the way up.

For air travel, I think we need a seat belt extender because if you cinch the aircraft belt in the forward facing path, you'll never be able to release the seat belt. While the baby loves it, it is very heavy to lug around the airport and you can clock people with it if you're not careful. We bought the bag for it, but it's completely unsatisfactory. Sturdier sewing is essential and wheels would be nice.

As advertised, these do fit three-across in the back seat of our 2006 Scion xB...hurray! I'm so pleased to not need a new car just because we'll have three kids.

However, there's an important note I hadn't run across in any reviews when researching this car seat: it is very tall. This means that if you have the car seat rear-facing, whoever is sitting in front of that seat may have to scoot their seat up pretty far. THIS MAY NOT WORK FOR TALL ADULTS. I'm 5'6" and not uncomfortable in the scooted-up passenger seat, but there's no question of my 6'2" husband sitting there; he doesn't fit. So he drives, which is fine, but it means that the two seats behind him--the one directly behind, and the one in the middle--need to be forward facing. It's something to consider if you're planning to install three-aside and want/need at least two of them to be rear-facing.

Other friends with different cars have not had this problem with the SSK seats, so it could just be an issue with the length of our Scion. If you're doing rear-facing, I'd recommend keeping the tags on when you install it for the first time, just in case it's too long and you have to return it.

Pros:
1. Remarkably sturdy seat
2. Narrower than most other models in the market
3. Easy to use
4. Folds up quite compact

Cons:
1. H-e-a-v-y!
2. Not as narrow as I expected... I was hoping for the center seating area to have a bit more room with two of these seats on either side
3. Rides lower than other seats - so kids have to crane their neck for a view outside

I drive a '06 Honda Civic and needed a new car seat since my six month old had outgrown her infant car seat. I took a while to decide between the Sunshine Radian or the Combi Coccoro. I decided to go with this one since the weight limit is higher rear facing and much higher forward facing. It is quite slim. I have the car seat set in the middle of the rear seats and I actually have more room than I did with her infant car seat. However it is very tall and to have the seat at the right angle for rear facing position you have to have the front seats up pretty far, which means less leg room for driver and front passenger. I kinda expected this but I will live with it. I guess that's why they make "family" sedans and my car is definitely not a family sedan. As for appearance, its pretty blah. I got it in granite, maybe the other color is prettier. It is very heavy due to its steel frame but hey steel around your baby or plastic, you decide. Pretty simple to install, instructions are clear and easy to follow. I am sure in the forward facing position this car seat will fit perfectly in probably any car with plenty of room for other backseat passengers.

I got a pair of these in anticipation of a trip and to install in my car (as opposed to the family hauler).

I can only compare them to my two other Britax seats (frontier and marathon).

These are not light weight (22lb), but since they fold flat, and have 4 points to attach backpack type straps, they will do a fine job of being transported among train, plane, taxi, and boat. There are inexpensive seats that weigh around 13lbs that some people use for their travel seat, but I don't want to skimp on strength, even when it's inconvenient. We have done the balancing act with the Britaxes on the rolly suitcases through the airport, and it works, but is precarious. The SK seats will slow us down less when on the move.

There is an element to these seats where there's more going on and more moving parts/adjustments than the Britaxes, but in a weird way I found the instructions clearer. The straps tangle less also. I installed one FF and the other RF in my small sedan. With LATCH everything is quick, easy, and very secure. And all the parts click into the back of the car seat to keep them contained and organized when you're not using them. Even tho' these are narrower than comparable car seats, they feel more solid because of the steel skeleton. The only main drawback I see right now is that the RF car seat protrudes further to the front of the car than the Marathon, not by much, but every 1/2" counts.

What's more, when I turn around the RF seat, I might even be able to squeeze an adult in the middle of the back seat.
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UPDATE: I stand by all my original comments, but after going on a trip I have some more thoughts to add... The problem with the seats is their complexity and relative time in reconfiguring them. On our trip the seats went from: My car -> airplane seat -> rental car ->storage -> taxi -> airplane -> my car again. The radians have an insert in the shoulder strap path that needs to be inserted or removed depending upon the configuration. I had to remove and reinstall it at several points in my journey (times two car seats). Not to mention all of the straps, and two shoulder straps dangling everywhere. Also, when traveling (going thru security, and preboarding) there's barely any time to reconfigure your car seat as is... so I never had a chance to fold the seat up and secure it flatly into the seat for ease of transportation.

I'm not sure if there's any good solution for a trip like mine, but the Radian 65 is definitely fiddley and cumbersome when you are moving it between vehicles, and especially when the situation is pushing you to move fast. My best guess is that if you used the car/taxi seatbelts and never used LATCH, some of the complexity could be eliminated, but that feels like a step backward, safety wise.

I'll add that these car seats fit amazingly well in the airplane and the tray table can be fully lowered in front of the passenger sitting in this seat.

We have two Britax carseats, the roundabout and one Marathon.

Needless to say they are both huge, and cumbersome. Especially to travel with. When you have a child the last thing you need is some large odd shapped object to truck around the airport.

The Radian is excellend for travelling. While it's heavy, it is so slim and easy to cary when folded. This is especially true if you get the travel back that they make.Sunshine Kids Radian Travel Bag, Black

This is a really high quality car seat. No styrafoam like the Britax, but nice foam (almost like memory foam). It's very simple to install using the latch system, especially if you child is forward facing.

In both our cars this car seat fits well and allows for 2 passengers to fit comfortably in the back. I also appreciate how "low" our daughter sits with this car sit which makes it more comfortable for her and us.

OK, so this is a heavy seat. I personally don't lug this around from car to car every day; if you do, perhaps it could be a concern. It's very solidly built, the only carseat I know with a full metal frame. And the installation isn't complicated at all; if you're using LATCH, it's as simple as sliding a strap through one of two paths (one for forward facing and one for rear facing), attaching an extra piece for proper angling in the rear facing position, and snapping to your car's LATCH. You also have a top tether for front facing position that's equally easy to connect.

We will do plenty of air travel over the next couple of years and I'm REALLY glad this seat is FAA-certified. This is where the weight may become an issue, but the fact that it folds flat and comes with backpack-type straps more than compensates for the weight.

My 11-month old son loves this seat in either front or rear facing modes. It's roomy and ultra-comfortable. My son hates those seats with excessive side and head padding, they make him sweat and grow restless. This seat is as safe as they come while giving the little guy room to BREATHE. And while installed in the middle of the rear seat of my BMW 328i, there is room on both sides for 2 adults to sit comfortably.

So... what's there not to love? I give it 5 stars without hesitation.

UPDATE: I took off one star. Why? Because you need to be Hulk Hogan to carry this seat aboard an airplane. It is nearly impossible to carry the seat in addition to your kid and any carry on baggage you may have. Even if you get one of those rolling car seat carriers, it's too wide to roll down the economy class aisle in an ordinary plane. I learned this the hard way during a recent trip to South America that really tested the limits of my capacity to travel alone with a toddler. My advice: Do NOT attempt to take this seat with you if you're travelling alone with a kid.