Reviews for Britax Marathon convertible car seat

I read reviews here before buying this seat. A little pricey, but worth it. No exposed foam like the Graco seat. You have to look -under- the seat cover for the latches, which threw me at first. I have no problem with the belts twisting as some reviewers did. My younger sister did when she buckled my daughter in. Pay attention and it won't happen. I have 7 siblings and remember many carseats. This is the nicest I've seen or used.

Don't get me wrong, we love this seat. It's durable, my son appears to be super comfortable in it and it's pretty light weight making it easy to move from car to car when necessary. Thankfully my husband and I both have new(er) cars now. Our previous SUV was a pathfinder that was a bit older and did not come with the child restraint latches. Unless you are a Yoga-pro or are ready to stand on your head while trying to figure out how the heck you're going to install the car seat...it's going to be a challenge. Either way, your top priority should be safety and nothing out ranks a Britax when it comes to safety. It's worth the buy and we wouldn't have gone any other way.

we purchased the Marathon for my daughter when she outgrew her infant seat and have owned it for 4 years. It is easy to use and now she can manage getting in and out on her own. The belt is easy to tighten and the seat is very comfortable. I would recommend this carseat as the weight and height limits are higher than the roundabout. It really provides for flexibility when considering the timing of moving into a booster.

When we first received the Marathon, we were worried it wouldn't fit into our 2007 Prius, but it installed quickly. What we like most about this car seat is how comfortable it is for our son (8 months and about 20 pounds) and how easy it is to get him in and out. The straps cinch up tightly, but we can loosen them without difficulty or a lot of tugging. It's also good to know that the Britax products come highly recommended for safety. Once again we were thrilled with the service from TipToeTurtle.com -- the seat arrived one day after we placed our order! Also we knew we didn't have to worry about problems with returning, etc. if the seat had not fit in our car.

I just got a Marathon Cowmooflage car seat and I couldn't do better than that. I have a VW Beetle and it fits perfect. It takes a little bit to install the first time (20 min) since you have to read the instructions but nothing to complicated, next time will take me 2 min. Really secure and doesn't move at all compare to the Evenflo's one that we have in my husband's car. The Marathon seat is high enough and allows my 1 year old to see everything thru the window, keeps him entertained and happy. A little too worried ordering a car seat from elitecarseats.com since I read a really BAD review from a customer (2005) getting the wrong product from somebody who had it returned so I made sure everything had been packed in perfect conditions and never been used before..EXCELENT....NO COMPLAINTS AT ALL, shipped the same day, got it the 3rd. day, always able to track it... Definitely will order again from elicarseats.com

We purchased this car seat right before our daughter turned one. She is now 3 & she is still using it. We have never had any problems with the belt coming undone. We haven't ever had any problems with it at all. I love knowing that my daughter is safe, I'm very nervous to move her into a booster. We have a almost 6 month old that will move into the Marathon when she is one. I may have to purchase another one of these since I haven't been able to find a booster that I feel comfortable with. We want one that we can take on the airplane. That is one problem that we have had with this car seat, it's bulky & hard to carry around the airport. Another thing was putting the airplane seatbelt through the back was really hard. My hands are much smaller then my husbands & I couldn't even do it. He finally managed it but it was difficult. Other then that, the seat is great. Well worth the money. I couldn't imagine being thrifty on my childs safety.

I ordered 2 Marathons on Friday and they were on my doorstep Saturday afternoon. Elitecarseats was great to work with and the free shipping was a huge bonus!! The seats were a better price than I could get from any brick and mortar store. The seats are very well made, and the fabric is nice (crocodile & onyx) without being too plush and overheating my son, like his Graco SafeSeat did (fusion fabric). I love the velcro to hold the straps out of the way. The floating HUGS harness is also very nice and makes adjusting the chest clip very easy. The installation instructions were difficult to understand. We read through them several times before we figured out the installation for a lap/shoulder belt rear facing. Due to incompatibility issues, we ultimately installed them rear facing in the back seat (passenger side in 1 car and drivers side in the other) with LATCH which was a breeze. My husband and I are average height (5'8" & 5'9") and did not need to adjust the driver or passenger front seats in order to give the Marathon enough room in the back. Obviously safety is a concern and this seat consistently performs well in tests. It's one of the best on the market for safety. The safest install position is center rear seat and rear facing as long as the child is below 33 lbs., so that's what we wanted. My HUGE disappointment is that I could not get a secure fit with the seat rear-facing in the center in either a 2007 Toyota RAV4 or in a 2007 Toyota Highlander. Neither vehicle has LATCH in the center position, and the seat belt install was never tight. And, yes, we did take it to a car seat technician, and he could not get a secure fit in the center (rear facing) either. I had tried putting a Marathon display model from a local store in my car before purchasing from elitecarseats. When I could not get it secure enough, I figured it was something I wasn't doing right. I thought that my husband or a car seat tech would be able to install it securely, with more time and effort. I even called the local car seat tech before purchasing, and he said he had installed many Britax seats over the last 5 years and had not yet found any incompatibility issues with it. Now he knows. I'm not sure if I'm more disappointed in Toyota or in Britax. Over and over again I hear that some seats are just not compatible with some cars. From the reviews that I have read (hundreds), it doesn?t happen that often, so why can't the manufacturers provide that information up front? A label that says "known incompatibility issues with some Toyota vehicles" or something like that would have been nice. I called both Britax and Toyota before purchasing the 2 Marathons and neither company would tell me about any incompatibility issues. And, carseatdata.org is no help, at least not for me. I have repeatedly searched it only to find limited or no data for my family's vehicles and the car seats we were considering. Based on everything I've read and seen, we do not have uncommon cars, and we certainly did not buy an uncommon car seat. Had I known that I was going to have issues getting a convertible car seat to install securely rear facing in the center back seat, (this is the second we tried; the Sunshine Kids Radian 65 also would not fit rear facing in the center) I may have purchased a different vehicle.

I bought two marathons for my twin boys when they outgrew their infant seats. It is so easy to get them in and out of the seats. It is actually much easier than their infant car seats. I love the velcro which keeps the straps to the sides. My only complaint is that the directions for installing the seats rear facing weren't very clear. I had to go to the internet and find some photos before I understood how to use the tether strap when rear facing. The seats are very secure and don't move at all. I have a Honda CR-V and you can't move the front seats all the way back when the car seats are rear facing. It's not a problem for me as I'm 5'4", but my 6'2" husband is cramped. Once we can turn the seats forward facing, it won't be a problem. The boys are much happier in these than they were in the infant seats.