Do You Always Get What You Pay For? A Review on The Recaro Young Sport

When you went shopping for your baby’s new forward facing car seat, you may have missed this particular item. And if your looking into a new car seat I highly recommend at least checking this one out. I was ready to purchase a Britax brand forward facing child seat when I happened across this seat. I was amazed by the safety features and the difference in looks, when I began to find out a little more about the company that makes this seat, I was sold.

Some Info On RECARO from Their Site
RECARO History
RECARO has been the world's most renowned seat makers for 100 years. A name that has become a benchmark. A synonym for quality. A symbol for value. A mark
of trust. A note for LUXURY. In its purest form. Right from the start.
RECARO stands for supreme quality with regard to ergonomics, safety, technology, design and comfort – and for perfected technical expertise which has involved a long company history: "We want to make it better!", is the frequently quoted claim under which Wilhelm Reutter founded the company, initially as a bodyshop, in 1906. He achieved his goal. RECARO has written automotive history: By 1935, RECARO had more than 400 employees. The 1960's saw production of the first seats for Porsche and other car makers. The first RECARO sports seat was developed in 1965. RECARO went international when its first plant was established in the USA in 1973; KEIPER AG bought the company in 1983. At the start of the 1990's, RECARO expanded its product portfolio. Comfort and ergonomic seats were to follow. Another important milestone was the successful launch of the RECARO child seat in 1998, the basis for establishing the Child Safety Competence Center in 2004. From the outset, RECARO's success has been in its ability and will to develop continuously and systematically.

I sat and thought for a while and finally gave myself the nudge and said to myself, “They make seats for some of the best (or better) cars of the country. They must know what they are doing…”.

I ended up making my purchase from a catalog where I had originally noticed the seat. You can find dealers by visiting the RECARO web-site and doing a dealer search for your area. There are also a lot of on-line vendors that sell this seat. In all I was planning on paying $300 for Britax seat, which at the time I viewed as top of the line. With the RECARO I paid $250, which isn’t a major savings, but it is a savings and I feel like I have an even better seat.

The RECARO Young Sport
The RECARO Young Sport can function as two different types of seats, the first is for children moving out of their infant, rear-facing, seats and the seat can also be used as a belt-positioning booster seat.

Harness Mode
In harness mode this seat is used with the integrated seatbelt harness system, which is a 5 point harness. You can use this mode when a child weighs between 18 and 40 pounds, height between 27 and 40 inches, and is at least over 1 year old.

The RECARO Young Sport has many points of interest some of which are fairly standard in all seats, some I haven’t seen on any other car seat I seen in the stores.

The upper portion of the Young Sport features a Head Restraint with a carry handle and side impact protection. This part of the seat is were your child’s head will be when sitting in the seat. While I’ve seen Side Impact Protection in some seats, RECARO’s take on side impact protection seems to be more in line than others. The SIP offers a narrow space than many other seats I have seen. My son has at most 3 inches of leeway on each side of his head and I might venture to say it is less than that. The head restraint and SIP is made of one entire piece of high grade plastic and covered with ample padding. The carry handle is convenient seeing as this seat is fairly heavy. Since the child’s shoulders must remain under the head restrain/SIP portion of the seat, it has also been made adjustable. You can adjust the headrest into 3 different positions in harness mode to make it taller. This adjustment can only be made by accessing the back of the seat, but is fairly simple. You pull a yellow rounded knob and pull up on the carry handle to adjust the height. Once you adjust the height of the head restraint you also adjust what is called a “rear tube” on the seat which basically adjusts the height the height of the harness straps at the shoulder level. Additional side impact protection is on each side of the seat beyond the head restraint on each side, which makes additional SIP in booster mode.

The integrated 5-point harness system for this seat is outstanding. The shoulder straps have belt pads for the shoulders on each side. It also offers the standard chest clip and a fairly basic buckle system. The shoulder pads offer extra protection and comfort around the neck and the chest clip fits snugly onto the seatbelts which means it doesn’t slide down as easily as some I’ve seen. The seat also comes with a small padding add on to the standard buckle. This can be slipped on and off the buckle and offers protection from pinches while clipping the shoulder straps in. I thought this was a nice feature to add to the seat. So many parents end up pinching their children with these buckles and this small padding can prevent that easily. Since the padding is only held on with a piece of elastic it does slide off of the belt easily, but it is also easy to put back on and never seems to go far. I have had it come off quite a few times when I take our son out of the seat, but it really isn’t that big of a deal. The shoulder straps are VERY easy to adjust on this seat. The adjustment control is located directly in front of the harness buckle on the front edge of the seat. It consists of a small metal button and a strap. To loosen the shoulder straps you push the button and pull on each strap to desired length. To tighten the straps you push the button and pull on the strap, which evenly pulls the straps tighter. I love this feature and have found it 10 times easier than adjusting straps on our infant car seat.

The base of the seat or the seat itself offers an armrest on each side, which is accessible in both harness and booster mode. The seat in booster mode is lined with additional padding that is removed in harness mode (Extra Cushion!). The backrest and seat are very well padded throughout and it looks so comfy I wish they had one in my size!

At the base of the seat on the right and left side there are two knobs. These knobs are provided to recline the seat. While this is a minor adjustment it does slightly recline the seat back about and inch or two, so child can lay back a bit more.

What’s behind all that cushioning? This is one part of the seat that impressed me the most. Many seats are made out of a single layer of the plastic this seat is made out of very tough high grade plastic that is fully enclosed. How to explain? If you have an infant car seat put your hand under the edge of any part of it, feel the edge. There are no edges like that on the RECARO Young Sport it is made out of molded high grade plastic throughout and all the way around. Like I said this thing is heavy and this is what makes the seat so heavy, which makes me feel that much better, I only have to carry it out to my car once!

Installing The RECARO Young Sport in Harness Mode
After fumbling and fighting with both of our infant car seats and their bases I was slightly concerned with the installation of our new seat. I was reassured that I had nothing to worry about when I lugged this seat out to the car.

We used the LATCH system to install our car seat and it proved to very simple. The seat features two lower latch buckles. You install these by pressing the clips onto the lower LATCH bars and you hear an audible click. The latch buckles on the seat where a major upgrade from the simple clips on our infant seats. These buckles are encased in plastic with metal clips that attach. The clips have a release button at the back which is easily accessible when removing the LATCH buckles from the car. Once you have both buckles engaged you must tighten the belt. RECARO had ease in mind for this also. Each end of the belt has been sewn together so that it creates a loop. You must depress the seat, which means I placed both knees into the seat and while doing that I pulled back on the loops at the same time. After getting the lower LATCH installed I also used the top tether. This included buckling it onto the Top LATCH in my car and tightening the belt to make it snug. Installation took me about 5 minutes (It took me longer to explain it, than actually doing it) and it was very easy. In the end the seat wouldn’t budge and it still doesn’t budge. The seat is very sturdy and stays in place well.

You can install the seat using different methods:
-Lower LATCH and top tether (this is the method we used)
-3 point (lap and shoulder) belt and top tether
-2 point (lap) belt and top tether
-Lower LATCH
-3 point (lap and shoulder) belt
-2 point (lap) belt

I have listed these from the manual and they are listed in order with the most preferred first).





Booster Mode
In booster mode the integrated harness system is removed and the seat is used as a belt-positioning booster seat. You can use this mode when a child weights between 30 and 80 pounds and height is between 37 and 59 inches.

In booster mode the 5 point harness system is removed. The head restraint can be moved into two additional, taller heights in booster mode, so it grows with your child. As you move the head restraint into higher positions there are additional side impact protection on each side of the seat. The additional cushion can still be used on the seat, but is optional in both modes.

Installing The Seat in Booster Mode
In booster mode your main installation is using the 3 point lap and shoulder belt when using the seat with the child. The top tether can also be used for booster mode, but not the lower LATCH. Using the seatbelt in booster mode, the seat has clearly marked red tags showing you were to put the belt. The lap belt is placed across the seat and slid into a small gap in the armrest. The gap turns into a horizontal opening to allow the belt to lay flat across the lap. The shoulder belt is routed through on side of the armrest and goes up through a small space between the headrest and outer side protection panels.

Cleaning And Material Details
The RECARO Young Sport is covered in a velvety material, which means one thing. It wipes down fairly easily and looks great. Out seat is covered in two colors, black and tan. The outer portions of the seat are black (SIP, armrest and exterior of the seat) and a block of tan extends from the seat and up the back rest. The seat looks very nice and is overall impressive. The RECARO Young Sport comes in six different colors, but all are neutral colors.

Removing the padding and covers for this seat seems like it would be a chore in itself. While I have never attempted it, the instructions for removing the cover and replacing it are quite lengthy so I’m going to attempt to keep it clean for as long as possible.

UPDATE: (July 07) I finally had to bite the bullet after our recent vacation and clean this RECARO car seat. I did this by first removing the seat pad and the buckle gaurd. I washed these two items in the laundry along with a load of laundry. These two pieces did fine in the wash machine, but the manufacturer warns not to wash the main covers of this seat in the wash machine and not to dry them due to shirkage.

I removed the main covers on the seat, following those lenghty instruction, it took me about five to ten minutes to remove the covers. I hand washed the items and put them in the dryer on an air only setting. Removing the covers hours later when they were finally dry I found them in like new condition and they fit back onto the seat perfectly.

Since I was not able to atually dry the covers with heat in the dryer this cleaning process was fairly drawn out and took the majority of a day to complete. I was worried that the covers would be hard to take off and put on but they are mostly held in place by metal buttons and velcro. The straps were also easily removed and replaced with the tube bar in the back.