Review and Giveaway: Evenflo Generations 65 Booster Seat (CLOSED)

One of the most important sets of purchases that you make as a parent involves car seats. From deciding what kind of seat to bring your baby home from the hospital in (since it’s one piece of baby equipment every parent HAS to have), to keeping track of height, weight, strap location, when to switch from infant seat to convertible seat to high-backed booster seat to low-backed booster seat – or whatever combination of seats you decide you need for your child(ren)… Car seats are a big part of raising kids in today’s automobile-driven world. And as parents, we need to educate ourselves as to which alternatives and options will keep our children safe and sound in the case of an automobile accident.

Our family has gone through several different styles and types of seats over the past (gasp) 8-1/2 years, and at this point I have my own opinions on what works best for us. You may remember that last summer we had the opportunity to try out Graco’s Nautilus 3-in-1 booster seat. We are still using that seat in one of our vehicles. But for the past year my husband had been unable to transport our youngest daughter in his vehicle, because she’d outgrown the convertible seat that we had in there (an Evenflo Triumph we’d bought back in 2004 when our middle daughter was a toddler) and hadn’t yet been able to purchase a replacement seat for it. One of my biggest concerns was thinking that my 3-year-old wasn’t ready for a true ‘booster’ seat, but since she’s big for her age, she’d outgrown most of the convertible seats out there.

So when we recently had the chance to try out Evenflo’s new combination booster seat – the Generations 65, I was thrilled. Evenflo is one of my two favorite baby and kid gear companies – our very first infant seat/stroller travel system was an Evenflo one.

What it is:

The Generations 65 Booster Seat is brand-new from Evenflo – and offers an increased weight rating so that kids can remain harnessed longer. The Generations 65 has an internal 5-Point harness for use with children from 20 to 65 pounds, and then the seat can be used with the vehicle seat belt with children between 30 and 100 pounds. Here are additional product details from the Evenflo website:

• 5-point harness provides security for your child
• Soft and luxurious ComfortTouch™ head and body pillow give your child the ultimate in comfort.
• PostionRight™ headrest adjusts to 5 heights to grow with your child and maximize safety and comfort.
• TensionRight® easy adjust harness tightening system and Central Front Harness Release allows parents easy access for quick, convenient harness adjustment
• Pivoting armrests which improves ease of entry and lap belt position
• 2 recline positions for better vehicle fit
• Removable head pillow and body pillow insert for extra cushion
• Flip out removable Cup holder included; can be used on either side or removed entirely
• 3-position adjustable harness to accommodate your growing child
• 2 crotch buckle adjustment positions
• Removable, washable cloth pad
• All Evenflo Car Seats are Side Impact Tested

Courtesy of Evenflo we received a Generations 65 Booster Seat to try out and review.

Here’s my our take on it:

When the Generations 65 seat came, I was able to do some long-overdue car seat shuffling in my husband’s minivan, and the seating arrangement now works out much better than previously. He has an older vehicle that doesn’t offer the LATCH anchors, so we have to use the shoulder/lap belt with a locking clip for car seat installation. I found the Generations 65 to be very easy to install – even with having to use the dreaded (at least in my case) locking clip. The seat is very secure – and the rear tether strap offers even more peace of mind.

One thing that I absolutely love about Evenflo’s car seats is the system used for tightening the internal harness – by having a knob that you turn instead of having to pull on a strap. I can get the straps so much tighter with the knob on this seat (and on our previous Triumph convertible seat) than any other seat that we’ve ever had, even when my daughter is wearing bulky clothing or a winter coat. There’s a knob on either side of the seat, so you have access to it no matter which side of the vehicle the car seat is installed on, and the button to loosen the straps when removing your child from the seat is located in the front middle of the seat, underneath where the child’s legs hang.

The headrest slides up and down into several positions so it accommodates your child as he/she grows, and there are also a few different options for the height of the straps as well – which is handy because since the weight limit goes up to 65 pounds, kids are bound to be much taller while using this seat than in a traditional convertible seat. We found a strap height that works well for our daughter, keeping the straps above her shoulder height. The seat is comfortable for her and she likes riding in it.

In my opinion, this seat compares well to the Graco Nautilus seat that we’ve been using since August. The biggest difference is that the Nautilus converts from high-backed booster to low-backed, while the Generations 65 can only be used as a high-backed booster. But for vehicles without headrests, you need a high-backed booster anyway, so that likely wouldn’t matter for every family. The Generations 65 is less expensive than the Nautilus ($99 versus $179 at Babies-R-Us, for example), so that’s something parents will want to consider as well. Our daughter fits comfortably in both seats and I’m relieved to know that she can stay harnessed in both of them until she reaches 65 pounds. From what I can tell there’s only one fabric pattern available for the Generations 65 (so far) – which is the black/gray one we received (called Mega Pixel). It’s definitely gender-neutral, but I’m not sure if the seat will get hot in the summer sun once the temperatures heat up next year. Having some different patterns to choose from would be beneficial in the future, I think.

My only real complaint with this seat is something that’s partially my own fault. The Generations 65 does come with a removable cup holder which you can put on either side of the seat. Unfortunately in the box it doesn’t come attached to the seat and I apparently have misplaced ours. I’m not a huge fan of this type of cup holder though anyway since it’s not a kind where you can put anything else into it, like snacks, because it’s not completely enclosed (you can see it on the picture of the seat above). There’s also not any kind of pocket or anything on the car seat to store toys in. Which isn’t exactly a safety issue, but since our daughter tends to spend a lot of time in the seat, it helps if there’s some storage.

The bottom line:

Overall we are quite happy with the Evenflo Generations 65 Booster Seat – and I love that this is quite possibly the last seat that we will need for our youngest daughter. There’s a lot of options to make the seat and harness work for kids of different sizes and heights and the internal harness system is very easy to use, especially with the tightening knob. My husband has been able to get our daughter in and out of the seat without any trouble and she’s starting to be able to buckle herself in as well. We’ll use the harness system for as long as we can and then switch to the car’s seatbelt – it’s a relief to know that we can keep the same seat when we get to that point.

Where can you find it?:

You can purchase the Evenflo Generations 65 Booster Seat at most retailers where car seats are sold, and online at Amazon. The suggest retail price is $99.

Would you like to try it?:

I have the opportunity to give away an Evenflo Generations 65 Booster Seat to a lucky reader! If you’d like the chance to try this seat out for yourself, here are the rules:

1. Enter by leaving a comment here to let me know what your favorite feature of the Evenflo Generations 65 Booster Seat is. Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded.
2. The contest will run until Monday, November 30th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY. US entries only, please.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If the winner hasn’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like extra entries, you can:

• Subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper right sidebar) or subscribe via e-mail – leave me a separate comment to let me know.
• Mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post, and leave a separate comment with the link to your post so I can find it.
• Either Twitter about, ‘Digg’ or ‘Kirtsy’ this post – leave me a separate comment with your username at whichever site(s) you chose (one extra entry per method).
• Become a ‘fan’ of this site on Facebook – there’s a link in the sidebar or you can click here.
• Add my ‘2009 Holiday Gift Guide’ button to your site (the button code is in my sidebar).

So that’s a total of 8 comments/entries if you do all of the extra entry options.

Good luck! 

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comment #37 as the winner:

Congratulations to Alicia (no blog) who said, “I love the knob to tighten the straps! What a bonus!“! I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details.

This post courtesy of: Evenflo. No payment or compensation, other than product samples as described above, was received for this post.