Britax Vehicle Seat Protector Review

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This seat protector would be just okay if it were priced at $15 dollars and is pretty disappointing at the $30 price point.

I have a Britax Boulevard car seat that we love. It's well made, well thought out, and clearly a quality product. Worth the money.

The seat protector--not so much.

I bought this seat protector to distribute the weight of the car seat and prevent indentations, but the Britax protector is much to thin and pliant to really help with that.

As Sunnyshine64 said, if there is any contour to your seats, the protector curls up, making the lip around the edge to contain spills useless. I'm not sold on this mat containing spills even if it is lying flat and uncurled. It only sticks out beyond our Britax Boulevard car seat by a few inches on either side, and I think that's optimistic for mess containment--at least with my son. The mat does lap over the front of the seat, so if your car seat is front-facing, it will keep dirty shoes off the seat, but so would a $5 towel.

The description of the mat says "The Britax Vehicle Seat Protector offers an engineered, non-slip material offer best-in-class car seat crash performance while providing protection to the vehicle seat from spills, debris and compression." The "crash-test" and "non-slip" part sounds wonderful and played a large part in my decision to purchase this mat.

However, after ordering this mat, but before receiving it, I asked the local police to inspect my car seat installation. The officer that helped me told me the car seat was installed properly, but was too loose. This is after both my husband, and I had hauled on the latch straps as hard as we could. My car seat has rear-facing tether, and that was as tight as we could make it, too. The officer climbed into the car, got into the car seat as much as he could, and with his weight pushing it down, tightened the straps. I was shocked at how much slack he pulled out of them. He told me this is much easier to do when the seat is front facing (it's probably a lot easier without the Smokey-The-Bear Hat and the equipment belt, too).

So, if your seat is properly installed and tightened down with a heavy weight in it, the non-slip and crash-tested aspects of this mat, or anything else (with in reason) you put under the car seat, are probably moot. The tightness of the latch straps is what really matters, not what's under the seat.

So, here's the take away:

--Reduces seat indentations--too thin and pliant to effectively distribute weight. Might be better than nothing, but only just. Not heavy enough, stiff enough, or thick enough to justify the price.

--Spill protection--possibly, but a seat cover or large beach towel would probably work better.

--Non-slip and crash-tested--yes, but probably moot under a properly installed car seat.

--Washable--yes.

I'm on the fence about going through the hassle of returning it.

**If you haven't done it, please consider calling the local police or fire station and ask about car seat installation inspections. My husband and I read both the car seat manual and the owner's manual for the car before installing it. We tightened down the latch straps as much as we could, standing outside the car and pulling hard. Despite all that, we missed something that could have made a difference for my son's safety in an accident. The inspections are free, so why not?

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We ordered two of the mats for our carseats. It is a rubberized carseat cover that will protect the seat underneath....barely. The front edge that folds over the front is nice. The fact that this is washable is nice. On the negative side, it is way too thin if you are purchasing for the reason of protecting your car seats from carseat indentations. The rug we had previously used protected the seats more than this $30 piece of rubber. If you have any contour to your seat, the mat will curl toward the contours, essentially rendering the spillproof ledge useless.

Will we use them? Obviously so, but just a little disappointed with the firmness/thickness of the rubber....seems too flexible as a car seat protector.

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Here's the deal, seat protectors (or anything touching/attached to your car seat) that are not tested by the company that makes your car seat can invalidate the warranty on your car seat if you're in an accident or if something horrible happens. We learned this when we were having our car seat inspected and the official doing it told us the seat protector we had would invalidate any warranty because the car seat maker no longer guarantees it's effectiveness. The benefit of this seat protector is that Britax actually DID do crash tests with their car seats and their seat protector (many companies don't) and so their warranty is still in effect if you use this. It does provide the coverage on my husband's leather seats so we know it's not being damaged which makes us both happy, and on top of everything else we know our car seat is effective!

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I bought this to protect my leather seats from my Son's Britax carseat which I like very much. This thing did more damage than good and "sweated" all over my seats leaving a sticky/greasy film that I still haven't gotten all the way off. I really want my money back and this thing taken off the market its ridiculous. I'm never the type to write reviews either as I'm pretty laid back. This product was just horrendous though. Putting a solid beach towel as protection is a much better alternative.

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I have 2 other seat protectors by other brands, however even though they claim to "grip" the seat they really just slide around and make installation difficult. I was happy to finally turn my Britax Boulevard front facing...except it is impossible to keep the seat in a reclined position while tightening the latch connectors. It gets pulled even more upright when installing the rear tether. With this pad under my baby seat it grips the base in place, and allows the seat to be tightened in a reclining position without being yanked upright. Yes it is thin and I do not have much confidence it will retain spills. But is the only seat pad that grips my carseat in place. I think it should be priced at around $20.00. It is doing exactly what I hoped for and give the seat and car a seamless look. Would be better if it came in a black option.