Baby Jogger® City Turn™ Rotating Convertible Car Seat in Black

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] There are many great things about the City Turn. First, it’s made to handle newborns (rear facing from 4-50 lbs) and growing children (forward facing from 22-65 lbs and 49” tall). The seat is solid and heavy, weighing about 28 pounds. It comes with removable inserts for a newborn, all very plush and soft. It’s premium material that provides supportive cushioning for a child. The infant inserts are for use in rear-facing mode only, but there is an additional lumbar support for young toddlers weighing up to 25 lbs that can also be used when forward-facing. How the inserts attach to one another and into the car seat is quite elegant; they snap together or use Velcro flaps to attach to the seat. Additionally, it has a removable cup holder, which is very handy. There are 3 rear-facing recline positions and 2 recline position for forward-facing and the head rest has multiple height positions to accommodate children as they grow. The straps are easily adjustable and can be changed with the child seated. The seat clearly looks like it was designed to handle impact and I felt that my child would be safe and protected. It meets and exceeds FVMSS regulations and is FAA approved for use on an aircraft in forward-facing mode. Now, the City Turn is touted to swivel and it does, but ONLY in rear-facing. That fact isn’t abundantly clear when you first read the description for the car seat, which made me quite disappointed after I started installing it forward-facing. I imagine the rotation and having the seat closer would be useful when placing infants, but I didn't try it with my toddler. I’ve installed a fair number of car seats and prefer to test the ease of installation by trying before reading the manual. This seat is NOT one where you simply try to figure it out without the manual. I spent a solid 45 min stumbling my way through installation and it was beyond frustrating. Read the manual first because it is NOT self-explanatory. Also to note, I did not use the lower anchors for installation because even after many attempts, I could not get the seat to feel remotely tight or secure with the lower anchors. So, I stuffed them back into the little compartment in the front of the base. Opting to use the seat belt instead, I first detached the tether anchor in the back of the seat. The belt path and RAPIDLOCK system is exposed by raising the headrest all the way up. After threading the seat belt through the belt path and locking it with the RAPIDLOCK, the seat is supposed to be secure. Sounds simple and straightforward, right? The directions are simple, but after many, many attempts, the seat still moves more than 1” and does not feel as secure as other car seats I’ve used. It’s simply wobbly and a bit unstable and the RAPIDLOCK system does not tighten the seat belt as much as I've seen with other similar systems. That’s my biggest concern with this seat. Overall, it’s a well-padded seat with nice features and can be used for a very long time for a child The swivel function I’m sure is handy, but the biggest drawback is how unsecure it feels. While I thank the Stellar Product Testing Panel for providing me with this convertible car seat, I would not recommend it for others