Car Seats For Babies
Buy and sell car seats for babies in Costa Rica.
A car seat in Costa Rica rarely stays in one car: it moves from the family sedan to a grandparent’s pickup and into the taxi home from the hospital. Infant seats with a carry handle, convertibles that start rear-facing and later turn round, all-in-ones that end as boosters and boosters for school-age children all come up here, new and pre-owned. Children outgrow a seat long before it wears out, so plenty change hands with years left. What decides whether one suits you is the date on its label and how it fastens to the car you drive.
Infant seats, convertibles and boosters:
each covers a stretch of a child’s growth, and the weight and height limits on the side label matter more than the age on the box. The infant seat rides rear-facing only, has a carry handle and clicks into a base left belted in the car, or onto the frame of one of the strollers as a travel system. A convertible faces backwards for a baby and turns round for a toddler, and an all-in-one ends its life as a booster. A booster, with or without a high back, has no harness: it lifts a school-age child to the height of the car’s own belt. Carrying a baby once you are out of the car is a job for baby carriers.
Anchor bars, seat belts and the car the seat goes into:
Costa Rica’s cars are old on average and many arrived second-hand from the United States, so check the back seat before you choose. Newer cars hide two small metal bars in the crease of the seat, called LATCH on American cars and ISOFIX on European ones. Older cars and plenty of work pickups have only the seat belt, and some European seats fasten only by ISOFIX, so make sure the one you want allows a belt installation.
The infant seat that rides without its base:
plenty of babies travel by taxi or in a relative’s car before the family has one, and the base stays at home. Many infant seats belt in without it, though not the same way: US-market seats usually take the lap belt through guides on the sides of the shell, while many European ones need a full lap-and-shoulder belt wrapped around the back. Ask to see those guides before you buy.
Where the money goes, from convertibles to backless boosters:
the seats that last longest cost the most. A convertible or all-in-one runs around ₡110,000 to ₡240,000 new, while a plain backless booster is closer to ₡10,000 to ₡12,000, little enough that a used one barely carries a price. On a pre-owned seat the value follows the time left before the date moulded into the shell, not the state of the cover: a recent all-in-one with years ahead of it holds a good part of its price, and one close to its date is worth little however clean it looks.
Stress marks, stiff straps and the sticker under the seat:
turn the seat over and look at the plastic in good light. Thin white lines or a crease near the belt path are stress marks, and most makers treat a seat that shows them, or one that has been through a crash, as finished. Straps that feel stiff or look washed out may have been through a washing machine or bleach, which weakens webbing. The sticker with the model and manufacture date, often with an expiry date beside it, has to be there, or you cannot tell the age or check for a recall, and a very cheap seat with no labels at all may be a copy that was never crash-tested. On an infant seat, check that the base is the one made for it and that the newborn insert and manual come along.
Photographing the label before the seat:
a sharp shot of the sticker with the model and manufacture date answers what every buyer wants to know, so put it first, then the seat from the front, the back and underneath. Say plainly whether it has been in a crash and which parts go with it, and wipe the straps rather than washing them. State how it installs, by anchor bars, by belt or both, and whether an infant seat goes in without its base: many replies come from parents-to-be planning the drive home from the hospital in a borrowed car or a taxi from Siquirres or Alajuela, and that detail decides whether they come to collect it.