Safety 1st Turn and Go Multimode Car Seat Review

Safety 1st Turn and Go rear facing

Safety 1st has entered the rotating car seats chat with the Turn and Go 360. Their offering has some pretty significant challenges, from a low top harness position to a high bottom harness position, a quirky install, and a smooth shell that makes moving the seat difficult, there’s a lot going on with this one. Come along as we check it out.

Having a hard time keeping track of all the rotating seats?  Check out our handy chart of rotating car seats, which has been upgraded to its own post.

Safety 1st Turn and Go errant cupholder

Out of the box, the seat is pretty much ready to go. The only assembly required is to add the cupholders. They line up with the plastic molds in the armrests of the seat, then turn to click in place. I did find that one of ours LOVED to leap off of the seat as I was installing and uninstalling for this review. Here it is, in its happy place on the ground.

Safety 1st Turn and Go wedge pillow

The seat includes a wedge pillow that we’d typically refer to as an infant insert.  However, in this case it’s required in rear facing mode, regardless of the child’s weight, and in forward facing mode until the child weighs 30 pounds.  These types of inserts are often lost or removed from the seat for cleaning, I can’t imagine that caregivers would notice this rule in the manual and keep track of this insert long enough to use it according to these guidelines.  I didn’t notice the restriction until late in the review process because it’s at the front of the manual, in the Accessory Use section, rather than in the rear facing section, which does NOT show the wedge pillow in place in any of the illustrations.

Image courtesy of Villian’s Wiki: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/2/25/Dark_Helmet.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20181027101757

You can also ask me how I know that should that happen, getting the Emme back into the box to send it back is another huge challenge. So I guess the solution to that is to loosely and inconveniently attach the shell to the track. Which brings me to Dark Helmet.

Safety 1st Turn and Go installation

To install the seat, you may need to remove any car seats that might be installed next to the seating position you intend to use for this seat, then set the Turn and Go on your vehicle seat. Attach the top tether loosely and squeeze the rotation handle on the top of the base (IMHO it is not particularly easy to access or squeeze, it’s in the middle of the base, under the child’s feet, it doesn’t squeeze with ease) while pushing on the seat to turn it. Once the shell is facing you, squeeze the recline angle that’s under the edge of the seat pan (on the shell), then flip the shell back and out of the way.

Safety 1st Turn and Go installation

You now have an abnormally large car seat — the Dark Helmet-looking shell is in the middle of the vehicle while the base is in the seating position you’re planning to use. Your next task is to actually install the base.

Our friends at Safety 1st wanted me to mention that the wires attaching the shell to the base were their answer to a requirement from NHTSA.

Safety 1st Turn and Go rear facing

Once I could actually access the belt path, the installation wasn’t too difficult. I started with the vehicle seat belt since the lower anchors were stored in a pouch on the base. I couldn’t quite figure out how I’d access that pouch and remove the lower anchor connectors while Dark Helmet was taking up my entire backseat.

Safety 1st Turn and Go two tension indicators

Thread the vehicle seat belt through the belt path, then buckle it in. Pull up on the shoulder portion of the belt while pushing down on the base. That part of the process is pretty standard but — the weight of the seat’s shell made the base tip quite a bit so I had to really work at getting both of the tension indicators into the green display. The trick was to push down a bit on the side furthest from the seat’s shell while pulling the seat belt snug. I also found that even when both of the indicators were in the green and the base should have been nice and snug, it really wasn’t. Like almost every car seat installation, it was that last adjustment that helped to secure the seat. Frustrating since the indicators showed that the tension was fine.

Safety 1st Turn and Go two tension indicators showing green

Once the base is installed, check your work by giving the base a firm handshake at the belt path. Finding a good place to do that check was also a bit difficult, I ended up turning my hand palm up, then grabbing the underside of the belt path.

Safety 1st Turn and go lower anchors

The seat includes standard j-hook lower anchors, you know, the type that’s prone to being difficult to remove once they’re installed. I’m always wary of this style of anchor — if a seasoned CPST finds them difficult to use, caregivers may as well. So I tend to use the vehicle seat belt instead if the caregiver agrees.

But since this isn’t a seat check, I removed the lower anchors from their pouch on the back of the seat and got to work.

The fact that this seat includes the less-featured type of lower anchor and they’re stored in an out of the way place suggests that Safety 1st would prefer that we use the vehicle seat belt with this seat. But it’s not spelled out in the manual so that’s just me guessing.

Safety 1st Turn and go lower anchors

The belt path for the lower anchors doesn’t use the lockoff on the seat’s base. It just goes over the closed lockoff. The tension indicators still work, which is nice. Thread the lower anchor webbing through the belt path, then pull up on the tail end of the webbing to remove the slack. I found this reasonably easy but did struggle a little when the lower anchor adjuster got into the belt path — I had to move it out of the way to get the webbing tight enough.

Removing the lower anchors was actually pretty easy!

Safety 1st Turn and Go newborn doll

Given the high 8.5 inch lowest harness position, I fully expected that our Huggable Images newborn (7 pounds, 17 inches long) wouldn’t fit well. Call me shocked and pleased but the doll does fit! The straps are at the doll’s shoulders (they should be at or below when rear facing so this is acceptable). But that high bottom harness position does make us a little cautious — please check the fit for an actual child in this seat before heading out for a drive.

Safety-1st-Turn and Go 16 month old doll

Our 16 month old doll is 31 inches tall. We expected the seat to fit the doll well since the doll is between the lowest and highest harness positions.

We were right! The doll fits well and has plenty of room to grow.

Safety-1st-Turn and Go 3 year old doll rear facing

Our 3 year old doll is 38 inches tall and fits will in the Turn and Go in rear facing mode.

Safety 1st Turn and Go 3 year old doll forward facing

Here’s our 3 year old doll again. We definitely expected that the doll would fit in forward facing mode, even with the fairly limited height range in the seat’s harness. The doll has about 2 clicks left to grow on the harness, which leads back to our concerns about the seat being pretty short-lived in forward facing and booster modes.

Safety 1st Turn and Go booster mode conversion

The harness stores on the seat itself, that’s always a plus. But the Turn and Go has a kind of odd piece of plastic behind the child’s back, it’s a lattice of sorts, the bottom half of it angles out and toward the child. My kiddos are long past the car seat days but I can say with some confidence that the way this plastic sticks out would have been a deal breaker for one of my kiddos.

Safety 1st Turn and Go booster mode conversion

Loosen harness straps, undo crotch buckle, remove cup holders, life pad from center of seat, pull crotch buckle out of seat, raise headrest to highest position, undo fasteners on seat pad, pull headrest cover off of headrest, thread harness slots into sides of headrest, tighten harness, wrap headrest pad around top of headrest, replace cupholders, rotate seat. Note: the manual instructs to rotate the seat as a final step but that’s the first time it was mentioned. I can’t quite imagine doing all of this with the seat’s shell in an unlocked position.

Safety 1st Turn and go booster mode

Clip the pieces of the chest clip together, then slide them into the cubby hole below the plastic grate. I tried very hard to replicate the setup in the manual but failed.

The manual cautions against using the seat in booster mode if the child’s head is within 5 inches of the vehicle roof. Since this seat is so short, I can’t imagine this ever being an issue. But you’ve been warned.

Safety 1st Turn and Go booster mode

Our 6 year old model is 48 inches tall. Though the model is technically below the height limit for using booster mode in this seat, the doll’s shoulders are above the shoulder belt guide so the seat doesn’t fit in this mode. We can’t really find a scenario where a booster seat with a 16 inch maximum belt guide height is useful.

Safety 1st Turn and Go lower anchor storage

Date of manufacture label: this label is located on the bottom of the seat’s shell. The Turn and Go expires 10 years after the date of manufacture.

Safety 1st Turn and Go aircraft use forbidden label

FAA approval: This seat is not approved for use on airplanes. We don’t disagree with this — it’s such an unwieldy seat that I can’t imagine traveling with it!