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Maxi Cosi Axiss Fit Review – Submitted to Best Buggy

I was very excited when Maxi Cosi announced the new Axiss fit.
As the driver of a people carrier who regularly carries 6 children around, it stood to solve our problem of access because the baby is safest behind the passenger seat. However a normal rear facing seat would block this access, meaning my girls would have to exit the car from the drivers back door at the road side.
It all looked perfect in the videos I watched, it has no supporting leg as it has a top tether, and it spins round to face you making placing your child in easier. Most importantly this created the gap my girls can safely pass to exit the car.

Maxi Cosi announced that the new Axiss fit would be a Mothercare exclusive and would be available to buy from mid December 2014. So I waited patiently with my mind made up that this seat was amazing and the only seat that would truly suit us.

In February 2015 I decided now was the time to move my 13 month old out of his Maxi Cosi Pebble so went on the Mothercare site looking for my local store that stocks it.
This is where I first felt let down and worried about this seat and the whole Mothercare exclusive deal.
My local store is Bakers Pool in Sheffield but as that’s the town centre, I called to ask about trying it in my car as one of the main rules of buying a new carseat is to make sure it fits. Much to my disbelief I was told they didn’t do fitting due to the stores location.
After a long chat with a sale assistant and me telling her why trying a seat in your car is so important, she disclosed that they hadn’t even been trained in fitting the Axiss Fit yet but could give me the required demo as they had seen a video!
I wasn’t buying from here.

So my search for a store that sold the new Axiss Fit continued, and I decided I would try the Leeds store, as its about a 40 mile drive so not impossible.
I called them to ask about fitting and trying in my car and was delighted to be told it’s not a problem.
So we drove to Leeds that day.
The sales assistant was lovely, she wasn’t as familiar with the seat as I would have liked, but did have a decent enough knowledge and paired with my own knowledge of car seats in general I felt able to make a good decision about this seat.
It fit perfectly and as I’d already thought solved all our issues of getting the girls in and out of the car safely at school, I was sold so we placed an order for delivery to our home.
The price was £350 but I thought that was a good price to say the seat will keep my son rear facing till 87cm, approx 2 years, and forward facing till 104 cm approx 4 years.

3 days later the seat was delivered and I couldn’t wait to try it out, everything about it seamed perfect.
Fitting is easy it has 2 stage isofix so the yellow bars click into the anchor points on your car, and a little part on the side goes green to show its fitted correctly. Then you attach the top tether, my tether point is at the bottom of the seat so a bit of a pain to reach but the strap it’s more than long enough to reach. It has to be tightened up to the correct tightness but there’s also in indicator for this that goes green so really fitting is a breeze.
It’s worth mentioning that not all cars have the 2 stage isofix so anyone thinking of buying need to make sure they have a top tether point.
The seat it’s self is very simple to use. It’s got a switch on the front that you put to either forward facing or rear facing, then the levers at each side are pulled to to spin the seat towards you for placing the child in, and then it effortlessly spins into the forward facing or rear facing position, depending on how your using it.

On first impression the seat is very well made, it has a nice cushioned protective side impact for the head and it’s nicely padded throughout the entire seat.
It has a 5 point harness that has strap pads, a buckle pad and even handy little pegs on the side of the seat you hook the straps on to keep them out of the way when you are placing your child in. Adjustment of the harness is done by pressing the grey rubber button below the buckle to make it bigger and by pulling the strap at the bottom to tighten around the child.

Initially I thought the seat was very well made but we soon found what I believe to be a major design fault.
We’ve all had that time when trying to fasten a wriggly baby into a seat right! Well the day my 13 month old son decided he was going to cause havoc was when I found how easily the strap twisted through the buckle so it’s the wrong way and if not corrected by the user leaves the harness twisted, which is a huge no no when using a car seat.
We’ve already had this happen to us 3 times in the month we have been using the seat, and I can tell you when your trying to get 6 children safely in the car in the cold and rain this is asking for trouble.
Each time it’s happened it has only taken a few minutes to correct but after all the recent attention twisted harness have had in the media over the last few months I was very disappointed to find it happening so easily with the new Axiss Fit.
It could quite easily encourage parents to leave them twisted and potentially endanger children’s lives.

As I also own a Maxi Cosi Pearl with family fix base that has never suffered this issue in the 18 months I have been using it I put them both to the test.
The results were clear as day….it is impossible to twist the Pearl harness through the buckle, it just won’t go through.

Clearly this is poor design then and not something that can’t be fixed.

Other than this one major issue the seat is really good, a little small perhaps but it’s only intended to rear face till 87cm, and is one of the very few iSize compliant seats on the market.

The seat is suitable from 61-105cm approx 4 months to 4 years and is suitable from 61-87cm rear facing and 76-105 forward facing.

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