Traveling with Littles: Renting Car Seats

Rental car seats, why are the tether anchors stored separately??

Renting a car seat along with your rental car sounds so convenient. Just hop off the plane, grab your rental car, grab a rental car seat, and go! Some rental car companies show a picture of a high-end car seat with a lot of nice ease of use and comfort features. Surely, that’s the seat you’d receive at the rental counter. Why not rent one?

Because the reality of renting a car seat along with a rental car is more than a little different than the vendor’s website might make things seem.

First and foremost, the Federal Aircraft Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and American Association of Pediatricians all advocate for children riding in installed car seats on the airplane. We do too.

We’ve touched on this in our travel articles, which cover the whys of airplane safety with Littles and the logistics of airports with Littles. After a particularly long flight sitting behind a child who “sat” in a car seat that wasn’t actually secured onto the airplane seat I now mention “installed car seat” instead of just “bring your child’s car seat on the plane.”

Rental car seat useage suggestions featuring quite outdated car seats

Once you get off the plane and visit the rental car counter, the seats available for rent are often shorter-lived models than the ones pictured on the rental car company’s website, meaning that they have lower height and weight limits than some of their more expensive counterparts.

We’re definitely fans of many low budget car seats but some of the lower cost models can be quite short lived, especially when a child on the larger side of the growth curve is the primary rider. TheCosco Scenera NEXT and Evenflo SureRide would be longer lasting options than the Cosco Apt and Evenflo Titans we saw the most often in our travels.

Our random data sample of 3 airports (San Jose, CA, Orlando, FL, and Las Vegas, NV) showed that the only the lowest-priced, least-featured rear facing only and convertible seats were available for rent.

Rental car seats

All of the rental car counters in the Orlando airport featured these handy signs explaining the age and weight ranges for each seat. While the age recommendation listed on these boosters is lower than we advocate for, it’s nice to see some educational signage available at the decision making point.

This rental car seat is missing instructions

However, the seats available for rent may or may not be expired, they may or may not include a manual. Though the seat’s date of manufacture sticker can tell part of the story (when the seat will expire), there’s no way to know if the seat has been in a crash.

Rental Graco TurboBooster missing screws

Many rental car companies offered Graco TurboBoosters available for rent. Great! We’re big fans of the TurboBooster! However, only one of those TurboBoosters had the required screws in the armrests.

We also noticed that there were NO combination seats available. There were rear facing only (infant) seats, convertible seats with low height/weight limits, high back boosters, and backless boosters. So a 3-5 year old child who should ride in a harnessed car seat would be without a safe option.

Rental car seats separate lower anchor storage

This storage rack “conveniently” keeps the lower anchor connectors separate from the car seats. While this may make storing those car seats easier, it removes a REQUIRED piece of equipment from the seats. We have a lot of questions about this particular setup. Here are those questions:  which seat do these lower anchors belong to?  Is it the correct lower anchor for the car seat a family will be using?  Or does that webbing belong to an expired seat?

This rack also includes a backless Graco TurboBooster that’s missing screws, this is definitely a theme.

Rental car seats stored in bags

Though rental car companies don’t typically have a washer on site, we’ve noticed a trend toward placing the car seats into plastic bags. Representatives at many rental car companies in both the Orlando, Florida, and San Jose, California airport claimed that the seats are somehow cleaned between uses. However, those representatives didn’t know how the seats were cleaned, nor did they know if the straps were cleaned as part of this process.

Rental car seats storage shed

Since using solvents or harsh cleaners on car seat straps can reduce the straps’ ability to properly secure the child in the event of a crash, these bags full of”clean” car seats make us more than a little nervous.

In addition to all of these concerns, there’s no way to determine if the rental car seat has been involved in a crash and should have been replaced.

One of these things is not like the other

• 20 year old car seats (car seats expire so this is a big concern)
• Car seats with covers so worn, they were disintegrating
• Seats with visible cracks in the shell
• Every seat we sampled was missing the manual
• The pièce de résistance: a highchair booster seat that’s typically used for feeding children. This type of seat is definitely not approved for use in a vehicle!

Car seats from around the world — available for rent!

Another fun trend that we’ve seen is random car seats from other countries that are available for rent in the United States.  Our best guess is that families brought these seats with them for their trips, then just left them in their rental car when they dropped it off so the rental car company put those “free” car seats and booster seats to work by making them rental car seats.   These seats not only have a very unknown history, they’re not approved for use in the United States.

Canadian residents visiting the United States could use their Transport Canada approved seats during their trip, but this seat (that belongs to the American rental car company) available for rent doesn’t fall into that category and is not legal for use here.

Rental booster seat from South America, available in Orlando!

This booster seat is possibly from somewhere in South America, it’s definitely not approved for use in the United States, yet it was available for rent in the Orlando airport.

In every city, at every rental car counter, almost every seat that we were able to take a close look at was missing the manual. Many seats were also missing the labels that might have helped fill in some of the blanks caused by the missing manuals. So not only do these seats have questionable/unknown histories, they’re missing most of the critical tools for a solid installation.