The first batch of results is in! And so far it’s not been bad – there weren’t that many ERF seats in this batch, and sadly a couple of them didn’t do too well, however, I am trying to get more info about those two, so bear with me whilst we go through the seats I felt were worth mentioning!

I am not going to go into any detail regarding forward-facing group 1 car seats. Rear-facing is the safest way for any child to travel, and children should remain rear-facing for as long as possible – preferably until they are at least 6 years old.

I will, however, mention high back boosters.

New for this year!

This year I felt like splitting the negative results in the test into separate posts. One reason is that I haven’t had any answers as to what really happened and I want to be able to amend the post as time passes, but also to keep it tidier.

Overview

The Negatives

The two extended rear-facing car seats that had a negative result in crash testing was:

• Apramo All Stage
• Heyner Multifix Twist
  (also sold under the names; ‘Foppapedretti Isokompass’, ‘Rotate Buggy Safe Mountain’, ‘Cosatto Come and Go’, ‘MS Innovacionnes Swivel’ and ‘AVA Twistfix’.)

In this blog post, we will be looking at the ‘Apramo All Stage’ which is a 0+/1/2/3 car seat with extended rear-facing to 18kg, retailing at £370. It uses both ISOfix and top tether.

Apramo All Stage

I was excited to see that this seat was tested as it’s available on the high street here in the UK, and I have seen several people asking about it around the Facebook groups.

Sadly it didn’t do too well in crash testing this time around, and after a lot of investigation – which to be honest we seriously should not have to be doing! We got some answers.

I had to go through no less than 4 different countries results here until the reason behind the result was revealed. At least the reason as it currently stands in Finland’s Autoliitto.

If you were not aware, I do explain about crash testing in this blog post below, and in there I explain how the ADAC crash testing is done, and then how the results are then published in several different countries, under different names. Here in the UK, the ADAC testing is published under ‘Which?’ consumer magazine.

A Crash Course – in Crash Testing

ADAC Ruling:

• Increased risk of injury during a frontal crash (this was worded as ‘very high risk’ on the Finnish website Autoliitto).
• Average risk of injury during a side crash

As I’ve mentioned above I’ve really tried to find out what exactly went wrong here! I took to my Facebook page asking for help, as I was hoping maybe Stiftung Warentest had any more info, but that was a no go, they don’t.

However a fellow car seat enthusiast started looking as well, and she managed to find some info from Finland, so I want to just quickly give a shout out to her! And thank her for PMing me.

What she linked me was the crash test video for the frontal impact crash:

The description in the video states:

Apramo All Stage sai vain välttävän arvosanan, koska etutörmäystestissä sen valjaiden kiinnitysremmi repesi irti turvakaukalosta ja istuin kellahti pitkälle eteenpäin istuimen ollessa asennettuna selkä menosuuntaan Q3-koenukella. – Autoliitto

Which translates (at least in Google. Sorry to any who speak Finnish if I’m muddling it, I had to make some adjustments to the English!) to:

The Apramo All Stage got an inadequate rating because of its front impact test. On its harness, the attachment strap (buckle strap) tore off the car seat and the seat clocked forward when the seat was mounted in the backward direction when using a Q3 dummy.

Now…could have been worse? I know that sounds bad from me, but all I’m saying is that even though this happening is not OK and should not occur, the child dummy never left the seat, it was not thrown out of the car seat – and the car seat has passed the legal minimums.

But I do know that’s a horrible excuse, I’m just trying to find a positive middle ground I guess?

Either way, the result is not good, and I can not recommend this car seat at this point in time.

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UPDATE 25/8:

I was contacted by Apramo (3/6-19) after writing this post. They did come back to me again in July (sadly I had not seen the previous reply email until late) and I have had no response after my reply sent 25th of July where I pointed out a few things I felt needed more explanation.

Apramo posted a press release and made a video which you can see on their website.

Please mark that 40mph is 64.37 kph and not the stated 74kph in that article/video. Small error, but important.

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I’ve also contacted other parties to try and get a clearer view of the crash test results. I may get an answer, and I may not.

I am hoping I will, or that someone else will, and I will be told as a 3rd party because I feel it’s very important to know what really went wrong here. And I think we can all agree on that!

I can only assume from the descriptions across 4 countries, that the seat did fine using the newborn dummy, used as group 1 forward-facing, and as a high back booster.

Also, this happened during the frontal impact test using the Q3 dummy, so basically the extended rear-facing mode. However, it did not happen during the side impact test – using the same dummy.

So far, I have not seen anything on social media or Apromo’s own website in regards to these crash test results, but it is still early days.

After all, it’s very important to remember that the manufacturers are actually NOT told their car seats are going to be tested. So whilst I am writing this blog post about the results, their office probably only just learned. So it’s understandable that we haven’t heard any confirmations yet.

I do hope we will though because how a manufacturer reacts to these things can either save their reputation or destroy it.

And I am not trying to negatively affect Apramo’s reputation.

But I would be doing everyone a disservice (I feel) if I were to just let these types of crash test results fly by without making any notes on it, or asking any questions.

When Apramo comes back to us on this, and I say when, because I don’t want to believe that they will not at all speak of it!
I sincerely hope that the answer will not be along the lines of:

• just use the seat forward-facing
• it’s passed legal standard and is perfectly safe
• just stop using it rear-facing once the child hits 13kg

Or any other random not acceptable answer.

What should you do?

If you own this car seat, what should you do? Well, first of all, I would advise you to contact Apramo direct. They have both Facebook and e-mail.

Their postal address is in China, but their Head Office is in Italy:

TELEPHONE & EMAIL

Head Office
+39 3404 107 414

Main email
Salesint@apramo.com

UPDATE 25/8:

As I stated in the post I wanted to update the post after Apramo got back to me. This did happen, they actually contacted me before I had a chance to contact them, but I received no response to my latest email, which is why this update is so late! I sort of figured it was best to at least link up to the press release they have published so readers can see it.

It’s unfortunate that we lost touch – part of it I will take the blame for as I had many things happen in the home which resulted in me not checking emails for a long time, and their first response was therefore missed.

I did touch base back apologising but didn’t hear anything back. So! I will leave the article as it stands with updated notes regarding their press release.