But it likely won’t make you shudder when you see it in the back of your car. It comes in several color combinations—mostly subdued variations on gray, black, and white, but turquoise and pink make an appearance, too. The seat padding doesn’t feel quite as cushiony to the touch as padding on graco convertible car seat our other, more expensive picks (which add more foam between your child’s tush and the hard seat). The Extend2Fit Convertible’s harness is easy to tighten around your child—you just pull on the strap located at the front end of the seat, so a snug fit can be achieved without a struggle.
Head over to our YouTube Channel to see the review and installation how-to of the Graco Extend2Fit. The Extend2Fit Convertible has a one-year warranty and a lifespan of 10 years from the date of manufacture. The seat scored well (PDF) in front-impact crash tests conducted by the NHTSA (the agency tests with dummies the size of 1-, 3-, and 6-year-olds), earning strong Head Injury Criterion (HIC) scores. Whenever possible, we sought feedback about the seats from kid testers. It grows with them and changes to a booster when they’re older. The Extend3Fit is a comfortable and better-quality option than most of the competition, and it is one of the best of the Graco options we tested.
Note that there’s quite a bit of space between this adult passenger’s legs and the dashboard. With the extender tucked into the seat, this model was still comfortable, but had 5 fewer inches of leg room. Installation with the panel out and lower anchors requires some of our reviewers to stand behind the seat and pull the lower anchors directly up in order to get the install secure. The Extend2Fit includes the Fuss Free pockets for buckle storage when the seat is not in use. That means you don’t need to dig around by your child’s hips searching for the buckle tongues every time you get them in or out.
Unlike the Extend2Fit Convertible, the Extend2Fit 3-in-1 converts to a high-back booster seat. In order to switch over to booster mode, your child must be at least 40 pounds and 43 inches tall, and have the emotional maturity to maintain correct posture while in the seat. To turn the Extend2Fit 3-in-1 from a five-point harness seat into a booster seat, you remove the bottom crotch buckle strap, move the harness straps behind the padding, and stow away the buckles in a compartment graco convertible car seat behind the padding. Removing that lower buckle is harder than it sounds; it can take several minutes of maneuvering to guide it out of its tight slot. This is not a flaw that’s particular to this seat—we’ve found readjusting crotch buckles to be a nuisance on plenty of other car seats—and you’re unlikely to be changing from convertible to booster mode all that often. With any car seat, it’s important to follow the height and weight restrictions for that particular model.
And we can see how an all-in-one seat might also make a lot of sense if you’re in the market for an ancillary car seat—say, to keep at a grandparent’s house or as a spare for the babysitter. Because in the case of a head-on collision, when a child is facing to the rear, the impact of the crash would be absorbed primarily by their backside, which is cocooned and protected by the shell of the car seat. But if the child is facing forward, the force of a frontal crash is going to propel their body forward, with the strain absorbed by their head, neck, and spine. You simply pull the handle at the base of the seat to extend the panel, but you do have to extend it before installing the seat (lesson learned!).