We at CarseatBlog.com were intrigued to hear that Combi was doing additional above and beyond FMVSS 213 mandated car seat testing in Canada of their car seats. Combi’s Director of Operations, Ed Whitaker, implemented the extra testing when he found out that the Combi Centre and Shuttle infant seats were detaching from their bases during NCAP testing of vehicles, but not during 213 testing. Let’s recap that the 213 test car seats go through is tougher than 98% of all car crashes in the U.S. It’s a very difficult test to pass and many experts in the field call it a “stiff” test. Like Kecia mentioned in Monday’s blog, the extra testing done to the seats in the NCAP testing was just that: extra, above and beyond, let’s install them in the cars and see what happens kind of testing. And some of them failed because they weren’t designed to pass that kind of test.
Combi found out their infant seats were separating from the bases in the NCAP tests and became alarmed. It clearly wasn’t happening in the 213 tests, nor was it happening in the field (what we call “real life”). Ed Whitaker went to Transport Canada’s Crash Worthiness Research Division to help design a test for the infant seats that would be an additional test as part of Combi’s quality assurance for their products. They also found where the seats had a problem and issued a recall. The process of testing worked exactly as it should have.
So, is the 213 compliance test obsolete? Is a 30 mph test not good enough anymore? Should we be testing car seats in vehicles?
Well, the 213 bench test has been around for a while. It’s basically a ‘60s vehicle back seat: 8° slope (which is pretty flat) and fairly squishy, from what I understand. How many vehicles on the road today have a back seat that fit that description? A new proposed bench has a 15° slope with a firmer cushion. That would make a big difference in performance. As for testing at higher speeds, well, we’ve got a test that’s better than 98% of all car crashes. In the JPMA response to the Tribune article, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) is quoted as saying that the likelihood of increasing the safety of seats won’t go up if the speed of the test is increased, but the cost of the seats will. Think of cost that will have to go into each seat to make it strong enough to pass the faster test. It would also probably increase the weight of an infant carrier. Whitaker agrees that a higher speed isn’t needed to test restraints, but that more research needs to go into the current 213 testing surfaces. And as of right now, Combi has that extra QA Canadian test.
Is it really feasible to test every car seat in every vehicle a la the NCAP test? Not really. Think of all the different combinations: there are typically 3 back seat locations, possibly 3 different seat belt configurations in the back seat, infant seats can be installed with and without the base, with the seat belt, with LATCH, convertible seats installed rear-facing and forward-facing with seat belts and LATCH, and the list goes on and on. And then there’s every type of vehicle on the road. I’m overwhelmed thinking about it! It all boils down to the parent following best practice: find the seat that fits your vehicle, fits your child, and fits your budget.
You can read Combi’s response to the Chicago Tribune article here.
From practice, I have found that there’s a trick to using the retrofitted Combi Centre. You have to push down firmly on the carrier handle with one hand while pulling firmly on the middle of the release handle. Then, you pull up on the carrier handle while still holding the release. The latch mechanism seems to get in a bind if you don’t push down or if you pull up too early.
Definitely not a perfect retrofit.
I’ve heard of this happening, Michael. I wish I could remember how my friend’s Centre worked when I looked at it for her because she had the retrofit on it.
I just used my Combi infant carrier for the first time after doing the spring retrofit. I installed the replacement spring very carefully and exactly as laid out in the installation manual.
Got home from the hospital yesterday with my new infant and I couldn’t get the seat separated from the carrier. I pulled the release handle as far as it could go. Could only get one side or the other to release, but not both at the same time. I resorted to just taking her out of the seat.
Anybody else use the retrofitted Combi infant carrier yet?
I’m not so sure the Combi fix was the answer. My understanding is that seats with the fix are very difficult to remove from the base now. I’ve never encountered one, so I can’t speak from personal experience.
I’m not privy to manufacturers’ ledger books, but several have shared that it costs tens of thousands to run a sled test when a change of design occurs. To totally redesign a seat means lots of engineering time, prototypes, testing, approvals, technical writers, etc. All that cost gets passed onto the consumer, even if it’s only a $5 price increase in the cost of the seat, though look at the cost of many infant seats now–they’re well over $100. I’m not letting manufacturers off the hook; they need to provide safe seats and I think they are. But I do think cost is a big factor too. I’m concerned we’re not producing vehicles as safe as we think they are.
They fixed the problem with a new spring…
Yup, lots of costs for new designs, extra testing, and of course heavier and more expensive car seats. Oh wait, they fixed the problem with a new SPRING! It leads me to believe that a lot of the hand wringing being done by the JPMA and many of the various car seat manufacturers is a whole lot of hot air designed to deflect attention from the real issue.
Will every issue be this easy to fix? Probably not, but don’t get too distracted by all of the hyperbole and straw man arguments coming from the car seat industry either…
It is probably impossible in terms of time and cost to test every child seat in a large number of vehicles in a real NCAP test.
On the other hand, you might be able to do it in a select few types of the best selling vehicles, though this would still be at considerable cost to the taxpayer.
Maybe they simply need test sleds that not only mimic a sample of modern vehicles more closely, but also the crash pulse in the NCAP test. They could then use such a test to establish a supplemental star rating for car seats. They could also continue the research by putting car seats in NCAP testing for vehicles to refine their sled testing.
I’d also point out that it’s not that we don’t think a 35mph test is a bad idea… it’s that the consumer reports test that they originally did was not accurate of a portrayal of a crash with a car going 35mph.
We’re not saying that they shouldn’t test some higher speeds, we’re saying that to keep costs down, they should try to use math and science to figure out what would happen in a higher speed crash test by seeing what happens in this existing crash test.
I really respect Combi for owning this and going above and beyond to fix it.
Their seat was clearly the one that really did have a problem and when they couldn’t find it, they went and did what they needed to do to figure it out.
Thanks Heather. I’d been under the impression the 15* seat was already in use, so that’s why I was asking.
Thanks, Trudy! I’m not sure when the change will occur. Looking up stuff on the NHTSA web site is impossible and I’m sure I have it written down somewhere else, but I just have to find it.
The Canadian test is different. The angle of the test bench is a little different at 7*. The speed is about the same at 48 kph (roughly 30 mph) and the maximum amount of downward rotation for both countries is 70*.
I think it’s fair to test vehicles at a higher rate of speed than car seats. The vehicle is the first line of defense in a crash: we want the crash tests to make sure the crumple zones are going to work as they should in protecting passengers. The most interesting thing to me about these NCAP experiments is how the energy is being transferred from the back seat to the car seats. It’s like–oh! We weren’t expecting that to happen. I think it shows that we need to improve how the energy is being absorbed and transferred in the back seat of the vehicles, not necessarily improve upon the car seats. I think it’s cheaper to redesign and improve the car seats in the short term, but in the long term, the vehicles need to be redesigned and improved.
Crunchy – CMVSS 213 is different from FMVSS 213 in multiple ways. CMVSS 213 has a standard in it called compression/deflection which affects the energy management in terms of force on the head. The 70* rotation is standard between the 2. Our crash test bench assembly is different than the FMVSS 213 crash test bench as well so some seats fail on the CMVSS bench but pass on the FMVSS bench. It’s part of the reason why some seats aren’t available in Canada, or are labeled to a different weight limit than the same model sold in the US. The compression/deflection (c and d,)is often the reason for a seemingly identical seat to be slightly different in Canada compared to the US. We’ve long known that manufacturers claim there are differences – and I think most have doubted they’d make a separate seat for each market, but I’ve recently been able to confirm that there are differences between US and Canadian seats in multiple models due to the c and d standard. CMVSS 213 also includes inversion testing – if a seat can’t pass inversion testing it can’t be sold in Canada, there’s no option for a manufacturer to just not give it FAA certification. I’m sure there are other differences, but those are the big ones I know off the top of my head. 😉
Any clue when the change is happening to the FMVSS bench to move to the 15*? I was under the impression that the 15* bench was already in use in the US.
I know people say that 35 mph is too severe a test, but if that’s the case, why are vehicles tested at that speed? Either raise the speed of child restraint tests, or lower the speed of vehicle tests. It’s all NHTSA–let’s have some consistency.
I also have such mixed feelings about Combi right now. I have been down on them for a long time for creating what I feel is the most ridiculous seat on the market (Zeus Turn), but I was EXTREMELY impressed with their actions in regard to the crash tests. Very impressive, really.
Does Canada have different testing standards or are FMVSS 213 and CMVSS 213 the same?