Review: Maxi-Cosi Axiss Car Seat

We were recently sent a Maxi-Cosi Axiss Car Seat and to say I was excited would be an understatement. This particular seat is one of Maxi-Cosi’s (in my opinion) innovative it is designed to swivel to ensure that putting your child in and out the car is comfortable and easy and with having lots of back and pelvic issues this one I was hoping would be right up our street! 

The Axiss is designed for use from 9 – 18 kg  which is 9 months to 4 years approx making it a stage 1 car seat. This also means that Joshua is using it at almost 3.5 years so he is almost at the maximum age range of the product, I thought this might be relevant to give you scale. 

First off when this car seat arrived .. I was shocked .. let me  explain….

In my head and from the Maxi-Cosi Website I had envisaged a really chunky hunk of a seat .. you know the ones that take 2 people to transport to the car and what we got was something a whole lot smaller and manageable to move, In fact is was really compact compared to the images in my head! 

I absolutely adored the longer than average chunky shoulder straps or should I say the pads!  .. they seems to melt round Joshua’s body in a far more protective way and I think this helped to make it easier to ensure the straps were lovely and tight against him (not cutting off his circulations tight) 

It seems I am not alone on the next love .. and that is the whole concept of the Car Seat….. a seat that swivels in both directions meaning no more leaning over and twisting! … Hubster was totally smitten with this feature. He currently has issues with his hips and also has developed issues with his back which means moving in general is painful so anything that make it easier for him to get Joshua in the car seat is a double bonus! 

The final massive love item has to be the super-duper seat belt tensioner! … this handy gizmo when tiled in the direction of the seat belt strap and threaded through will tighten the seat to ensure it is fully secure and super tight meaning no movement where there shouldn’t be! … I have to say it is a little tricky  to start with (getting the angle just right) although I did crack it in a  few minutes to it’s not especially difficult or fiddly.

Throughout the whole fitting there were 2 areas that I had issues … the first one I couldn’t get the seat to twist in the direction I needed, and it had me stumped for a good 5 minutes (if I had read the manual fully I would have known!) So if you, like me did not read the manual from cover to cover till afterwards and are struggling to get the seat to twist in one direction over the other … there is a switch underneath! 

If you slide the switch viola! *mental note made to read instructions first*

The final issue … which in fairness has nothing to do with the seat specifically is that It wont fit in my car (this is why you should always have a physical fitting before buying!)

I drive a Vauxhall Zafira on 54 plate and it seems we had the age-old problem of buckle crunch. For those of you that are unaware of buckle crunch the simple explanation is .. when using a seat belt to fix the car seat (of any brand and make) into a car with a 3 point harness the buckle should not be pressing on the plastic of the seat .. if it is it creates pressure on the buckle of the seatbelt and in a collision this pressure can pop the buckle open on an impact! … I will be blogging about this in more detail over the coming weeks. 

It seems my particular make and model makes it a nightmare to fit car seats on a 3 point harness and to best rectify I tend to use my isofix points to attach car seats. So for this seat I have installed it into my husband’s car instead….. below is the picture of the seat in mine and then the seat in his:

As some of you know we have test driven and reviewed a few of Maxi-Cosi’s car seats and loved each one for their own uniqueness but this nifty seat is our personal fave the swivel  has been amazingly helpful with us both having back/hip/pelvis problems! 

Thanks Maxi-Cosi for another great car seat …. however an IsoFix version would be amazing so I can buy one for my car now! 

Disclaimer: This product was given to us for the purposes of giving an honest review. All Opinions in this review were independently formed by members of The Oliver’s Madhouse