UPPAbaby MESA Infant Car Seat Reviews

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List Price: $279.99
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My husband and I are first time parents, and we were absolutely lost when it came to baby supplies. We eventually settled on the Uppababy Vista stroller (which is awesome), but deciding on a car seat took a little longer. We were almost set to get the Chicco KeyFit, but found out that Uppababy was releasing their own car seat too. When we tried it out in the stores, we were convinced! Installs VERY easily, looks amazing and classy (not cheap like other ones), and it's so easy to use with our stroller (comes with the adapters too).

I would disagree with other reviewers who say it is too heavy... yes, it is heavier by a pound or two than some other models, but once your baby is in it you'll never notice the difference. I also don't think the shade makes much noise when adjusting, but that's my opinion. On a related note, we haven't used it in the rain yet, but I have heard that the canopy easily gets water stains (and the company is aware of this issue)... I watched the Uppababy video demonstrating how to remove the canopy for washing though, so I'm going to wash it beforehand to hopefully prevent the staining issue. They also show you how to re-install it afterwards.

Overall, very satisfied!!

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Our seat was manufactured in March 2013 and we received it in June 2013. At that time, quantities were limited and we considered ourselves lucky to have received one. Our previous experience was limited to the Graco Snugride carseats a Classic Connect 30 that is advertised as weighing 7.5 pounds and a Platinum 22 that is also advertised as weighing 7.5 pounds.

Pros:

Installation of the base was very easy. This was one of the selling points for us as I found the base of the Graco seats very difficult to install and we frequently have to remove the seats.

The fabric is fairly soft and our youngest seems less fussy in this seat compared to the Graco

It is compatible with our 2010 Vista using the provided adapters

Cons:

The Uppababy Mesa is advertised as weighing 10.5 pounds. In reality the extra 3 pounds are noticeable when compared to the Graco and it feels as if it weighs twice as much.

The sunshade came detached from the back of the carseat after 3 weeks of normal use. We can sort of stuff the edge of the canopy back into the shell of the car seat, but this is a really poor design as it becomes detached quite easily each time we adjust the seat. I strongly recommend they fix this. At least screw it into the back of the seat or glue it or something.

The canopy has 3 positions and takes quite a bit of force to click through them to get it fully extended. No way the baby can stay asleep through this.

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We pre-ordered the Mesa in January, my son was due in May but the company we ordered from assured us the seat would be released by then. UppaBaby didn't keep up their end of the deal and the release date kept being pushed back so we canceled and got a Peg Perego SIP 30/30 instead. I was ecstatic when I heard the Mesa was finally been released we absolutely love our UppaBaby Vista so I was excited to try another product. We were in an accident and needed a new carseat so the first thing my husband and I did was go to see the Mesa...huge let down.

Pros:

It looks cool design wise

The latching system is pretty neat

Cons:

1.) Terrible Construction for as much as it costs the seat looks like its made out of very cheap plastic. The one I saw in the store that they had JUST gotten was already scratched and the handle looked like it was separating. I'm used to the sturdy well constructed handle of the Peg Perego that we'd used heavily for several months this one looked like it might fall apart any second.

The sunshade is a nightmare. My son is very sensitive to outdoor light, especially when he's sleeping so this was a must for us. The UppaBaby fails big here. The shade will not stay nice and tight over his face like the pictures. It popped completely out of the back and kind of sags over the front so the baby is exposed front and back. It never stayed connected to the back which made the back look like a cheap plastic bucket. On top of that the plastic rods that are used to construct the sunshade popped out of the fabric on the ends and was poking out I could totally see a kid turning their head and poking their eye on this.

It also felt heavier than our current car seat.

2.) Base most people rave about this but I can't figure out why. Our Peg Perego has a super tight fit to the base on 4 points. The Mesa seat seemed like it just clicked on to the front of the base so my husband was able to wiggle it around and even pull it up some. At first he wasn't as against the seat as I was but as soon as he saw this he was convinced this was not the seat. After being in an accident and seeing what really happens having a seat that fits right on the base is so important.

3.) Doesn't fit on the Vista apparently it fits on the cheaper Cruz but not the 2013 Vista without adapters....this is annoying. Plus even with the adapters the carseat doesn't fit tight on the stroller.

Overall: For the price this carseat is a totally disappointment and I am a fan of the company and their other products. I give them some leeway because the Mesa is their first carseat so hopefully they take note of the issues and resolve them. I wouldn't spend my money on this the Peg Perego is an awesome seat, doesn't look as streamlined but is so safe, excellent quality and easy to use.

I'm either going to get another Peg Perego or a Nuna Pipa definitely not the Mesa.

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Looked at this seat in person today and was about to pull the trigger since it will of course work great with their Vista stroller, until I started playing with the base. The seat only locks into the base via two metal locking mechanisms towards the rear (baby's feet) side. The problem is the groove in the seat that the base's metal bars insert into, one on each side, are fairly large, which allows things to get caught in them without preventing the seat from fully settling into the base as if it had latched successfully. Making matters worse; the seat is held in quite tightly even if only one of the attachment mechanisms is actually secure, so you have to rock it from side to side somewhat forcefully to actually realize one of the latches has not locked in.

The reason I noticed this whole issue is because the gray strap you can see in the picture that comes over the edge from the baby's feet area is more than long enough to get caught in the latch mechanism. While playing with the seat and base, I had accidentally got it snagged in the latch and couldn't yank it out. Then I realized, after pulling on the seat, that only one of the two latches has secured, the other had the strap caught in it. This could easily occur in real life with the very same strap if your baby is small and you have the harness fully tightened, leaving more of that belt material hanging free.

Prior to encountering that, I was actually pretty impressed with the seat. It looked like it would offer quite a bit of protection, and the LATCH system belts that pop out were the best out of all the seat bases in the store. What makes them better is they were longer than most, which means they'd be very easy to hook to the car, however, they have a ratcheting tension mechanism that tightens them up once you've connected them to the car. They can't be pulled back out without disconnecting and fully retracting them. Think of it like a car seatbelt when it locks; it can keep getting tighter but can't get any more loose. The other seats all had fixed-length LATCH belts and some method of adjusting the base to push away from the car's seat to tighten the belts. Those are more of a pain because you'd have to screw it in, push buttons, whatever the case may be, to get the belts close enough to the LATCH retaining points, then screw it back out, etc. to tighten them up. Big pain compared to simply click, release.

The buttons for adjusting height and angle were very easy to operate too. Overall I thought it was a great seat, just felt like the seat to base latch issue was too likely to be forgotten once or twice and bad luck would likely make that the one time I have a car accident. An additional note on that; several other seat bases have the same two-point connection mechanism, however, the other two I looked at had smaller or deeper grooves that, if a similar type of material were caught in it, it became too tight to be able to push the seat down enough to make the other side connect, so a similar issue could not occur. In the end, we went with the Peg Perego Viaggio seat instead; its base has a four-point connection system which made me feel more confident it would never give a false sense of locking in place.

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We were super excited about this car seat coming out to go with our Uppababy Cruz. We wanted so much to like it but it was just so much heavier than other car seats. Granted only like 3-4 lbs heavier which doesn't seem like much. But you can really feel a difference if you hold it up side by side with another car seat. And this is without the baby even in car seat! Due to the weight it was not as easy to get in and out of the middle seat in the back. One plus is that it fit in my small backseat (Lexus IS).

But we had to pass on this for 2 reasons: (1) it costs like $100 more than comparable carseats and (2) it was just impracticably heavy.

disappointed :(