I’m always surprised at how people react to my blog posts. In an earlier post, I made a brief mention about how much we loved the Combi Zeus-Turn car seat we bought in Japan and brought back to America. After that post, I noticed a very high level of buzz about the car seat so I thought I’d expand on our experience with this seat. Is Combi is planning to bring this seat to the US market?

First a disclaimer. As of this writing, the Combi Zeus-Turn (or simply, Zeus) car seat is a Japanese product that is, to my knowledge, not currently exported nor certified for use in the US. In preparing this writeup I do not claim to be a car seat safety expert. These comments and observations are strictly my opinions based on my use of the product over a 4 year period. There are probably very few native English speaking people who have used this car seat to even write a review. Car seat designs change, so I don’t know if the latest Combi Zeus is of the exact same design as this 2003 model. The seat could certainly have evolved since I purchased mine.

For all you child safety advocates out there, I understand your passion and professionalism, but please don’t jump all over me about this. I’m just a regular person who loves his children just as much as the next guy. In my opinion, child safety in a car is a combination of many things; a good car seat properly installed, the child properly restrained in the seat, the car seat position in your car, the type of car you drive, and your personal driving habits. So, is a kid riding in a Honda Odyssey with a $50 hand-me-down car seat better or worse off than the kid in the $200 Britax with the road raging parent driving a prone-to-roll-over SUV with under inflated tires? I am not one to pass judgment. I’ve already been scolded by one “safety patrol” person that the photo of my daughter in the Combi (in the earlier post) showed her in a forward facing position. My response: did you notice that the van was parked, the doors were open, and I was standing outside taking her picture? Come on, we weren’t moving! Before I closed the doors and drove off, I flipped her rear facing…with a Combi Zeus, you can do that (and I realize that some people will say that’s a bad thing).

What is the Combi Zeus
The Combi Zeus is a very different kind of car seat. It is a 360 degree swiveling clam shell seat on a large stationary base. It can go rear facing for infants, and forward facing for toddlers (and side facing to ease your lower back pain when loading your child). The 2003 Japanese model we own is only secured by standard shoulder seat belts — there are no LATCH straps. (See the Combi Zeus-Turn Japanese website…note, no English here.)

Click on these thumbnails for larger images:

The last image above has writing all in Japanese. But you should get the point. According to Combi, the car seat should be used rear facing with a child up to 9 to 10 kg (19.84 to 22.04 US pounds), after that Combi is recommending to switch the child forward facing up until 18 kg (39.68 US pounds). I believe the most commonly held recommendation these days is to have the child sit rear facing for as long as possible, so a 22 pound rear facing limit may not be enough for some. My daughter just turned 12 months as of this writing and weighed in at exactly 22 pounds, so I’ll be following the manufacturers guidelines and start facing her forward.

Buying the Combi Zeus
We bought our car seat in Japan from Akachan Honpo (like a Babies R Us in Japan), and much to our surprise, they would only sell it to us after they checked the make and model of our car to see if the seat was compatible. Not only that but we were supposed to show proof of ownership of the car as well! After explaining that we were American visitors and could not easily show them our car registration, they agreed to sell us the seat on our good word that we were telling the truth about our car . It was a while ago, but I believe we paid around $300 for it (not including the price of travel to Japan).

Installing the Combi Zeus
Even if you don’t read Japanese, the car seat installation was fairly straightforward. They even included a video on the proper installation of the product. Still, I found my Combi Zeus to be really hard to get a good firm installation without using another device to augment the belt system (read on). See the following pictures and captions for a first hand tour of some of these points.

Here are simple to follow directions on how to install the car seat belt through the Combi Zeus.

The first photo above shows the actual belt path. The second photo shows the final belt clip open, the third photo shows it closed. The forth photo shows the adjustable rebound bar.

A word about the belt clip (I don’t know what else to call it) in the second and third picture above. I don’t like that thing very much. While it is made of sturdy plastic, basically the same material as the car seat itself, it seems like a weak point in terms of safety. It does lock down with a positive snap, but I’ve always wondered what would happen if it pops open. From an installation point of view, I found that locking belt clip made the seat very hard to install because it was hard to pull the slack out of the seat belt to get a good firm lock. Even with another person pushing down on the seat, once that clip was locked down, it was very hard to pull the slack out of the belt.

I found a solution for that by using a Mighty Tite seat belt ratchet. This device installs near the anchor point of the seat belt, and makes tightening down a car seat very easy by simply ratcheting the slack out of the belt. I’ve heard most car seat safety experts frown upon the use of the product, but I’ve found it to be the best way to get the fit I want out of this Combi car seat. Again, I’m no safety pro, but come on, this thing is a basic ratchet. It is the same industrial-age technology that has been securing cargo in flat bed trucks and planes every day for decades. Still, from a purists point of view, I would agree that it is another possible point of failure.

The Mighty Tite installed.

Using the Combi Zeus - Making it turn
This is the feature that makes this seat unique, and it’s what everyone stops me in parking lots about. I’ll try my best to give a step by step in the following pictures.

In this picture, you’re looking at the bottom front of the seat locked in forward facing position.

In this picture, the yellow dial ring is the safety lock. With the seat locked into forward facing, this ring must be turned before the seat can be unlocked from forward facing.

In this picture, my finger is pulling up the release latch. This latch serves several functions. If you want to swivel the seat, you must first turn the yellow safety lock (previous photo), then pull up this latch and push the seat up and back. This will unlock the seat from forward facing and allow it to turn. If you want to simply adjust the reclining angle of the forward facing seat (like for a sleeping child), just lift this latch and push the seat forward or back (without turning the safety lock). In rear facing position, this latch is the only release to make the seat turn.

Now that the seat has been unlocked from forward facing, you can turn the seat. Above, is the rear of the seat. Note the two “rails” that extend down the back below seat cover. These rails are what lock into place and secure the seat in forward facing. The length of the rail is the amount of recline that the seat can do in the forward facing position.

Here the seat in nearly fully turned into the rear facing position. Your rear facing child’s feet will be resting here on the seat base. Note the two slots on the back of the seat base - these slots have bolts which are what lock the rails (in the previous picture) into forward facing.

The child’s harness is a 5 point design with a puzzle type buckle. The two sides first must be fitted together, then pushed into the snap. Note the middle photo, the red colored dot below the big red release button show that the buckle is not fully locked. In the final photo, the dot is now green indicating a solid snap.

I know some might be wondering if a child can turn the seat by him/herself. In my experience no. I think a child sitting in the seat would have to be from the planet Krypton to operate the seat by himself to make it swivel. An infant seated in the rear facing position will not have the strength, or physical dexterity to reach down to their feet and with one hand pull and hold the release latch, then simultaneously with their other hand, turn the seat. A larger child sitting forward facing, might possibly have long enough arms to reach and operate the release latch, but he wouldn’t be able to reach the safety lock that must be released before the seat can turn. Seriously, I don’t see how it would be humanly possible for a kid to make the seat swivel while seated. And, after four years of use, neither of my children have even attempted to turn the seat.

Conclusions - The good and bad
The upside:

1. Loading your child in the car is SOOO much easier because the seat will turn to face the door opening. Don’t under estimate this feature, this alone is a huge draw. As parents, we love our Zeus.
2. It’s convertible so you can use this seat for newborns up until 3 or 4 years depending on the size of your child.
3. Durable construction and high quality materials used throughout. Compared to other car seats we’ve used, our Combi seat has sustained a lot of wear and tear over 4 years and still looks and feels new.
4. In forward facing mode, the car seat can be easily reclined to make a more comfortable position for a sleeping toddler.
5. Child comfort. Our daughter can’t talk yet, but our son told us that the Combi is more comfortable than our other car seats. He was sad to give it up for his baby sister.

The downside:

1. In general, all car seats can be pretty hard enough to install (correctly). Our Combi Zeus was very hard to install correctly without the Mighty Tite.
2. Size and weight. This is a big and heavy car seat and it certainly won’t fit into all cars.
3. The rear facing weight limit is pretty low.
4. It is certainly possible to misuse this seat by failing to lock the seat into forward or rear facing positions before driving. Sadly, no child safety product can prevent parental stupidity.
5. As far as I know, it is not a US certified product. If you’re really into the “safety patrol” thing, lack of US certification means you probably shouldn’t buy it. On the other hand, Japanese child safety laws and regulations are not exactly “third world” either, so the seat did pass certification over there. I have many Japanese friends and I can tell you that they love their kids too.
6. Or if you’re of the camp that believes that more complicated things means more points of failure, then the Combi Zeus is not for you.
7. If you really think this seat is cool and want to get one, I believe you still have to go to Japan. The air ticket alone will make this car seat really expensive .

Posted by Netsato on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 12:13 pm.