Best Toddler-Booster Combination Car Seats From Consumer Reports' Tests

These seats are designed for kids who have outgrown their rear-facing seat

By Emily A. Thomas, PhD

Consumer Reports’ toddler-booster/combination car seat ratings have been updated with our latest test findings, revealing the seats that provide the best balance of crash protection, ease of use, fit to vehicle, and booster belt fit. (Seats are evaluated for their crash protection on a scale of Basic, Better, and Best.)

You can find five of our top models below.

Also known as harness-to-booster seats or forward-facing-only combination seats, toddler-booster car seats are typically used for kids who have outgrown the height or weight limit of their rear-facing seat. Toddler-booster seats are used until children are big enough to use the vehicle belts alone.

These car seats are initially used with a five-point harness system to restrain the child; then, after he outgrows the harness, he transitions to using the seat in booster mode with the vehicle’s seat belts to restrain him without having to purchase a separate booster seat.

CR’s experts recommend delaying the move to a toddler-booster combination car seat as long as possible because there is a loss of relative protection from rear-facing to forward-facing and from five-point harness to booster. See our car seat buying guide for more information.

Especially when it comes to booster seats, experts say that it’s not just a matter of your child’s weight or height.

“For booster seats, the child needs to be able to sit upright with the belt properly positioned the entire ride—no squirming, or moving around,” says Ben Hoffman, MD, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Council on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention and the author of the AAP policy on child passenger safety.

Before putting your child in a booster, first check to make sure your child can get the proper seat belt fit with the booster. Your child should also be mature enough to stay put because the seat belts are not locked in place, as they are with a harness.

Boosters are meant to elevate children so that the vehicle’s seat belt fits them properly, with the shoulder belt resting midway across their collarbone and chest, and the lap belt sitting across the upper thighs and hip bones. This ensures that the forces applied by the seat belt in the event of a crash will be to the strong, bony parts of a child’s body, and that the child stays properly secured by the seat belt.

How CR Tests Car Seats

Our fit-to-vehicle scores take into account how long parents can use the car’s built-in lower anchors (or LATCH) to install the seat vs. using the seat belt, and are rated for both installation methods.

We also evaluate how the belt fits a child when these models are used as a booster seat. We evaluate this in actual vehicles—the same ones we use for our fit-to-vehicle assessments for all car seats—and we use a child-sized dummy that represents an average 6-year-old. We evaluate belt fit both after initial positioning of the dummy in the booster and again after we simulate typical child movement.

Our crash-test protocol goes a step further than federal government requirements for car seat tests by using an actual vehicle seat that sits behind a simulated seatback, and our test has higher crash energy and speed to be more representative of current vehicles and crashes.

Consumer Reports tested 11 of these car seats, rating them on crash protection, how easy they are to use, and how well they install in a variety of vehicles, as well as their ability to achieve and maintain proper seat belt fit as a booster. The results show clear performance differences among the seats tested. The models below excelled in our tests. Complete car seat ratings are available to CR Digital and All Access members.

Britax Grow With You ClickTight

The Britax Grow with You ClickTight is a top-rated seat with excellent overall performance combining ease of use, booster fit, and fit to vehicle. It scores better for harnessed crash protection. The ClickTight technology is easy to use to help provide secure installations. It is a heavy and bulky seat, however, that might not be best if you’re moving it between vehicles often.

Cosco Highback Booster

This seat has a 40-pound weight capacity and scores well across all our tests. The Cosco Highback’s ease of use and ability to achieve a secure installation in multiple vehicle configurations increases the chances of the seat providing the best level of crash performance demonstrated in our simulated crash tests. It’s a very lightweight seat, making it great for carpools or as a spare seat for grandparents or a second vehicle. One downside: Its low weight limit won’t allow for long-term harness use before children will have to switch to booster mode.

Evenflo Maestro Sport

The Evenflo Maestro Sport is a high-performing seat at a value price, earning a CR Best Buy designation. It has a lower, 50-pound harnessed weight capacity, meaning the transition from harness to booster is required sooner than most other combination seats. LATCH use is allowed for the full harness weight range, and installation with LATCH is excellent.

Graco Nautilus 65 LX

This seat provides a good balance of securely fitting in vehicles, ease of use, and crash protection. Belt fit in booster mode and installation with LATCH are both excellent. The seat scored a Better for crash protection.

Evenflo Evolve

The Evenflo Evolve demonstrates a very good balance of crash protection, ease of use, and vehicle fit at a value price. The seat comes with push-on LATCH connectors. In booster mode, lap belt fit is not ideal. It is a heavy seat that might not be best if you’re moving it between vehicles often.

How to Install a Car Seat

Child seats have come a long way over the years, but proper installation is key. On the “Consumer 101” TV show, Consumer Reports expert Jennifer Stockburger shows host Jack Rico what to do to keep little ones safe in a car.

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