I am a 26 year old mother of a very cheeky little 2yr old daughter, that we both love trying new thi...
I am a 26 year old mother of a very cheeky little 2yr old daughter, that we both love trying new things. i love my opinion to be heard in surveys and questionnaires in order to try and make a difference to the consumer choices that we all have.
I actually had this bought for me by my uncle (but I picked it) when I gave birth to my daughter nearly 2 years ago, and this pushchair is still going strong.
Price roughly is around £260-£300, but that is for the car seat aswell
What comes with the package:
The Graco Quattro deluxe travel system is a pushchair suitable from birth. I used it straight away from my daughter being 3 weeks old. You can put it straight back so it lies flat and there are 3 other seat positions, I loved this as it allowed me to put it straight back when she fell asleep, one downfall is that it is hard to adjust, you need to get the bars just right underneath, but once you've mastered it, you find it straight away. The trouble is then, is you have to teach everyone else how to do it. And if they mess about with the bar trying to lower it flat while she's asleep it will wake her up.
It is suitable for weight 0-15kgs which is equivalent to 0-33lbs.
It is forward facing, and I liked this idea as soon as she reached about 6 months and I could put her into the pushchair without the car seat (but I will get on to the car seat later) and she could start seeing a different world, I introduced her to cars and buses, making the noises of things, and one thing she started doing as soon as I put her in the front facing part, was she started saying hiya to everyone who she could see, it was funny at first, but when she says hiya 50 times in the local supermarket it gets a
bit annoying. But it amuses her.
It has a 5 point safety harness to it which I find holds my daughter in perfect. It comes up between the legs, but sometimes this could be a bit tight depending on what she's wearing. The straps come round each side near the bum and then shoulder straps each side come down and they all fit into each other. She can't get out of it.
It has got lockable swivel wheels which I find is fantastic when you're going round corners and the locks not on the wheels, it's so easy, it glides, and it is great for going round shops aisles, and it is easy to swivel round when you've got your hands full, again though you need the knack to do it. Of course you can also lock them so they go in straight lines but I didn't get on with this to well as I kept having to go in straight lines instead of swivelling.
The wheels are big rubber ones, that look and actually are really sturdy.
It has also got suspension on all wheels and this is great for going down steps! I know you shouldn't really use it for this but it does work fantastically and it is a really sturdy pushchair and it can stand the bumps. Where I live there is about 10 to 12 steps to get down for the bus stop, and I use it every time for that and it hasn't done any damage to it whatsoever.
The brakes are at one side of the back wheels, it has got linked brakes, but I find these miss their slot in the grooves on the back wheels quite alot. I find you have to do the brakes each side for them to be done properly, which in itself is quite pointless when they say it's supposed to be linked brakes.
The shopping basket on this pushchair I love to bits, it can stand a great lot of weight! About 10-15 2 litre bottles, (even though you're not supposed to put that much in there, you know how us girls are with shopping, saying we are only going in for one thing, and come out with 20!) if I know I'm going shopping I always take my pushchair (I have got a buggy aswell) it can fit lots of bags in. Getting them out can be a little bit of a problem as you have to pull a metal bar on the top of the basket and again it's something you have to get the knack of, but once you get the idea of it, you can get it right almost every time.
It has got a parent tray which I find is very useful as it's got a clock and a temperature gauge on it, so I'm never late for a bus, and I keep my bus tickets in the parent tray
It has got an extra case to put on the top, but I never use this as you have to remove it every time you want to fold the pushchair. I didn't find this really useful as it kept coming off, it didn't fit quite right anyway and every time you opened it, it fell off.
It also has a play tray which has a middle bit where you can put snacks or something which is easier on me as I can just put the sweets in there and my daughter can help herself rather than me keep giving her one at a time and having to keep stopping. It also has 2 cup holes one either side. The only trouble is you have to get it off when you fold it up, and it yet another thing that needs a knack to it, as you have a tiny button to press and it's got to be right down and you holding this button whilst you try and wriggle this play tray off. One side is just a spring clip but the other is really too hard to get off sometimes.
It has an adjustable leg rest but I haven't really found this very useful, only in the beginning when she was very small, I put it up vertically so she didn't fall out when she was laid flat.
It has got an apron that you just clip round the sides at the top and the bottom, that I put on if there is a wind or if it's cold as her legs will get cold otherwise. I find this very useful, but I can't get to her play tray as its covered up by the apron so I have to either give her the sweets/crisps in her hand, which then the apron gets mucky more quickly.
It has a removable washable cover, but it doesn't say how difficult it is to remove. One day my girl wasn't very well at all and she was sick all in her pram, where she sits, I then had the task of trying to take the covers off to wash them, wow what a job, 2 hours and several screws later, ha that's the hard bit, it doesn't tell you, you have to unscrew about 20 different screws from all over the pushchair, but also you have to remember where you took them from, as some are hidden. Not a task I would do every week!
When you have finally got the cover off, it is machine washable at 30 degrees C
The handle height is 106cms which is ok, but if you have to turn it widthways on a bus you have to lift the whole pushchair up off the floor so that people can get by you.
It states it is a 1 second one hand fold, yeah if you have very very strong wrists; it's something else you need to get the knack of as you have to turn both bits at the top at the same time as pushing the button across and turning the bits and go forward with the whole lot. I can honestly not do and could never use 1 hand to do this. So I think this is slightly misleading. It also says its flat fold, but I wouldn't say flat as such.
The weight of this pushchair is 15.2kg which is a bit on the heavy side, but as I use it all the time on buses and walking with it, I don't really myself need to fold it up and carry it.
It has got an aluminium chassis which is one reason why I picked this pushchair in the first place, it looked very sturdy with the metal bars going down the front of it. I always thought if my child gets hit by something, she's more likely to survive in that than them little pushchairs that have hardly got anything to them. (Not supposed to be morbid, sorry.
The car seat
The car seat is fantastic, it has got an EASY removable washable cover, ok, you have to try and discover how to get the hood off first! it fits well into the play tray well, but again it takes a certain knack to get it just right to lift off, you have to lift a big red handle at the back of the car seat but then you have to try and push down and then lift up really quickly to get it off. The car seat also has a headrest for newborn babies which I found very useful and my girl sat in and upright very nicely. It also has harness protectors cushioning where the harness is on the baby so it doesn't leave marks. The harness to adjust is tricky, because you have to find it inside the car seat itself located between where the legs go in the middle of the seat. Just another thing you need the knack for!
It has got a carrycot that comes with the pushchair, that you put your baby inside and can put it inside the pushchair when it's lying flat down, but I didn't really use mine.
It's got a large canopy for sun and rain protection, which is really good, but I found this was really useful in the early days as I could put the hood of the car seat when the car seat was on the pushchair and the canopy of the pushchair together and it kept her in her own little cocoon but the pushchair canopy has got a very useful zip up see through window, so even though she was enclosed I could still see her. I loved this factor.
And last but not least, it has an auto baby car base with the car seat. This enables you to keep it in the car and there is a long bar so you can put that bit into the footrest of your back seat, then you can clip the seatbelt round this car base, and just slot your car seat into it rather than having to strap your car seat in the back seat every time. It really is a useful invention if you have a car.
Overall I love this pushchair as I shop alot, and I always catch buses, but it's not very good or easy to fit into the boot of a car as it's so big.
Summary: great for shopping and buses and walking, not great for cars as very big and bulky (i have also written this review on dooyoo-twinkleroks1)
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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Advantages: Big Shopping basket, Suitable until baby wants to walk, Great for Ramming people out of the way (joke) Disadvantages: Very Heavy, Bulky and Hard to find somewhere to put the pushchair when not using it.
Apr 16th, 2009
(Apr 14th, 2009)
very helpful by (100%):
