Now that Vee has graduated into his third car seat, I’m reviewing Britax Frontier 85, purchased at a discount from Jingle Box (distributor of Britax in Malaysia). Britax is still our trusted brand, with the Frontier 85 being our second Britax car seat. (Toddler Jae is using the luxurious Britax Boulevard CS, which is reviewed here.)
First Impressions
Britax Frontier 85 is a combination booster car seat, meaning it can be used in harness mode for a younger child and seat-belt mode for an older child.
Although Vee is rather big and sturdy for his age, at 20+kg, he’s still very light compared to an adult. As mentioned in IIHS website, “…they should use boosters until adult belts fit properly, usually when a child reaches 4 feet 9 inches and 80 pounds” . That’s about 145cm and 36kg.
Our Detailed Review
Rating Guide: ★ Oh no! ★★ Poor ★★★ Fair ★★★★ Good ★★★★★ Excellent!
(a) Safety: ★★★★★ I like the 5-point harness and true side impact protection.
Here’s how Britax describes True Side Impact Protection:
“True Side Impact Protection provides deep side walls and a head restraint with energy-absorbing EPP foam to distribute crash forces, shield from vehicle intrusion, and contain the head, neck and body while keeping them “in true” or aligned”
(b) Ease of Use: ★★★★★ Hubby was able to fit the car seat rather easily. Adjusting the shoulder strap to fit snugly is also easy.
5-year old Vee is able to climb in and buckle himself up independently. This is especially important since we go out with 3 young kids.
That sai, Vee is still too young to use it in booster mode, so we haven’t tried it out yet.
(c) Fit: ★★★★★ It has fitted Vee from 4 years old to 5 years 9 months old now. It still has lots of room to grow, for use in booster mode.
(d) Comfort: ★★★★ The fabric is soft, but not as luxurious as Boulevard CS. Vee naps easily in this seat, but his head may tend to droop forward.
The arm rests and cup-holders are nice extras. With my boys, the cup-holders naturally become a trashcan for all kinds of junk — tissue paper, toy aeroplanes, bread crumps, just name it.
(e) Quality: ★★★★ So far so good after 1 year 9 months. Still need to withstand a longer test of time.
(f) Overall Value: ★★★★ The retail price was about RM1600. Again, though a bit on the high side, it’s definitely a great investment in our children’s safety. I feel very at ease when Vee is buckled up in it.
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What we like about it:
- 5-point harness
- True side impact protection
- Easy to install
- Easy for preschooler to get in and out
What can be improved:
- Use the same luxurious fabric as Boulevard (We’ve been so spoilt by it!)
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Get Your Own (with Discount!)
We bought our Britax Frontier 85 from the distributor in Malaysia: Jingle Box.
Live outside Asia, you may also check the price of the latest Britax Frontier car seats at Amazon here: : Britax Frontier
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Image credits: Amazon Britax Frontier 85 Booster Car Seat
Disclosure: I purchased the Britax Frontier 85 at a discount from Jingle Box. To ensure a fair review, Jingle Box received 3 months of free sidebar banner ad in return.
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Travelling in Malaysia and Singapore, I am constantly amazed that so many families do not restraint their children in proper child seat. You ought to be congratulated for writing up about it. However, I wonder if you would care to comment on whether some seat are too big for certain cars, especially as many MY people own small cars. For example, if rear facing possible, which is a challenge even for some big cars.
Also, you didn’t really describe how this car seat is fastened to the car seat (eg, Isofix, or seat belts, or has top tether strap, is it easy to do, or easy to get it wrong?),or whether it will leave marks on leather car seat.
In Australia, it is mandatory for child seat to have top tether strap, which prevent forward movement of the seat back in the event of a frontal crash. There are several news report of severe car crash in Australia, where the front passengers are deceased but the child at the back survives, because they are restrained in Australian Design Rule mandated child seats.
For ADR child seats (not sure if there are available in MY and Sin), here is a web site. It is worth a look – https://www.childcarseats.com.au/
Hi Michael, thank you for your comment. Due to time constraint, I certainly didn’t do a very in-depth review. Also, these car seats are probably replaced with newer models by now. At least, the purpose was to remind parents to use a reliable car seat.
The 2 Britax car seats could fit into our previous Honda Accord, at the back. The Boulevard was faced backwards for a while. I’m petite and could squeeze in between them, until I was pregnant and we had to get an MPV (Innova) to fit a bigger me, and eventually 3 car seats, with none in front.
We fixed them using seat belt. The Boulevard needed an extremely long seat belt, such that we took that into consideration when getting the MPV.
Boulevard is also rather wide, so I won’t suggest it for narrow cars.
We don’t mind whether they leave marks on the leather seat, so this wasn’t covered. It was also rare when we removed them, except to change to the new car.
Hubby finds installing the car seats a breeze and does them really quickly. (I’m not sure if I can do it as easily as him though.)
Yes, I do hope more children get to travel safely on the roads.