Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL Convertible Car Seat, Eclipse
July 28, 2010 | Posted by admin 
- Rear-facing: 5 – 45 pounds; Forward-facing: 20 – 80 pounds (53″) in a 5-point harness
- Steel alloy frame, aluminum reinforced sides and adjustable side-impact safety headrest
- SuperLATCH installation up to 80 pounds – no seat belt required with SafeStop energy absorbing harness system
- Fits 3-across in a mid-size vehicle and offers more shoulder space
- Folds flat for travel and storage; includes convenient carry strap and sits low on vehicle seat for easy child boarding
Product Description
Sunshine Kids Radian XTSLThe NEW Radian SL series car seats offer the first NCAP tested, high capacity LATCH system up to 80 pounds without the use of a seat belt! Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL car seats are convertible for rear-facing children 5 – 45 lbs and forward-facing children 20 – 80 lbs in a 5-point harness. With height-adjustable and aluminum-reinforced head support, steel alloy frame and protective EPS foam, the Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL provides complete side… More >>
Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL Convertible Car Seat, Eclipse
Categories: Any Brand | 
Tags: Convertible, Eclipse, Kids, Radian, Seat, Sunshine, XTSL | 
5 Comments »
No cupholders. You’d think for the amount of money invested… this would be an option at least.
Rating: 4 / 5
We went for this because it saved a lot of width in the car. On that count, it delivers. It’s significantly narrower than all the other competing models and we have 2 seats back that adults could sit in.
Also, our little guy likes the seat, he will climb in by himself now.
That being said, there are a lot of downsides:
* It’s heavy. Seriously. Don’t believe those pictures with those happy people putting this thing on your back. You will not be a happy camper running through a large airport with this, especially keeping an eye on the children.
* The installation instructions are HORRIBLE. I heard some stories about people taking a long time to set it up, and I thought “rubbish! they’re incompetent!”. Unfortunately, it’s true. To start with, the installation is NOT fool-proof. There are many ways to seemingly hook it up. To add to the misery, the manual also sucks. It describes, more or less, the procedure. In words. Very few descriptive pictures. Unless you’ve done a few of these, yeah, I’d say be prepared to spend a good 30 min. trying to figure it out.
* All those extra bolstering cushions. It’s not obvious how to “mount” them and the instructions are virtually non-existent, so we ended up just storing them away. Summary? Go for the cheaper seat and forget about these.
* In the rear-facing direction, the straight seat back does extend quite far forward, so you either have to place it in the middle, or hope that whoever sits in the front seat is short.
* The installation again. The seat is tough to get straight in some locations. Really. In the middle, our seat is always tilted one way. I think it comes down to the strap that ties down the seat. For some unfathomable reason, it is tied to a strap (for storage?) that is riveted to one side of the seat. That strap is also a wee bit short, so when I yank the straps tight (as you’re supposed to do), it also pulls down one side of the seat!
* Shoulder straps. These are finicky. We figured out, and the salesperson also said as much, you have to pull it tight in many short jerks. On top of that issue, the straps often don’t tighten evenly for some reason. That part we can’t figure out since both straps our attached at the same point to the single pull strap…
Would I recommend? Only if you really need the seat space offered by this narrow chair. Otherwise, the rest of the design, manual, ease-of-use, they quite SUCK when compared to the previous Graco that we owned. That was getting small, and yeah, it looked kind of “cheapy”, but the installation was virtually fool proof and everything more or less works easily despite some minor useability gripes.
Rating: 2 / 5
I like that this car seat has a steel frame and lasts till 80lbs, I wouldn’t have to buy another one…or so I thought. I drive a volvo s-60 and there is no way I could get this seat installed at the right incline without having my front seats pushed as far up to the dash as they would go. My husband is 6′3″ so it just didn’t work out. I’m holding on to it until we can use it forward facing because it really does seem like a good seat, but be bought a combi corroco in the mean time and i love it!
Rating: 2 / 5
If I had pictures, I would post them instead and let them do the talking. Guess I could provide a video.
First off, I’ll say save your money. For the cost of this thing, I expect quite a bit from it. Plus, I’ve already attempted to talk with a Sunshine Representative and he has not called me back. But for $299 (or thereabouts), I consider design a prominent feature.
In terms of the convenience because of its width, it is great. Ideally, you could probably put three together on the same bench. But I did not pay $299 for this convenience.
It is heavy but I think that lends itself to the solid installation of it (when installed properly.) I think the idea that it can “fold in half” for portability to mitigate its weight is a joke. Don’t let the catalog pictures showing a smiling model carrying the XT SL in its designated carrying bag fool you. I’m a strong guy but lugging this around an airport is an effort especially pushing a stroller, holding a carryon bag, or carrying your child. The fact that it can do this should not be a selling point at all. Also, the weight of this thing makes unfathomable to ship it back for a refund even if you did buy return shipping insurance.
Problem #1 – There is no way this could be a rear-facing seat. No way, period. If so, send me picture proof of a clean installation with verification from a child seat installation inspector (e.g. fire department). Two reasons. First, it is too long to fit in any typical vehicle. Not everyone wants to drive a minivan or Chevy Suburban. In the middle seat? Do you really want something this heavy in the middle seat? Ok, if so, then tether it down in the middle seat and tell me if you are not annoyed by this protruding headrest with tethered strap occasionally interfering with your shoulder.
Second reason, side protection is almost nil for infants in rear facing mode. Compare this to say a regular infant car seat. The side protection headrest does not come down far enough to protect an infant’s head. Sure the sides flare up a little and may provide some protection but keep in mind you are paying near $299 compared to other brands that DO offer infant side protection. If it was tested or suited for an infant, they must have been considering a child in the 90th percentile or above in height.
So bottomline, my 10-month cannot use this seat.
Problem #2 – I’m not sure how the other reviewers had installed this seat using the lap belt method. I have an earlier model vehicle as well and have to use the shoulder-lap belt method. I did a makeshift straw poll of several of my friends’ vehicles regarding their seat belt equipment. The result was that they are pretty much the same in design. After all, the seatbelts and their configuration are regulated by the Federal government. SO, I have assumed that a majority of cars out there have this huge seat belt latch similar in design to the Super Latch (SL) on this car seat (only rated for fat guys like me.) They are no longer this small square-ish buckle.
Anyways, the point is that this fastener/latch HAS to be slightly pushed through the designated forward facing slots while the connector is snaked through the other slot. After they meet and are tightened, their resultant is within the carseat but behind this hard vinyl shield (which lies behind the padded carseat cover. While to me this seemed fine, my 2 (and a half) year old did not like the feeling of this seat belt connection behind his back. He cried in his carseat and kept saying “it hurts.” I did not know what he meant until I pushed the seat cover to where I felt the seat belt connection. Sure I could “twist” the buckle/latch portion so that the connection area was removed away from the back of the carseat. But I figured this may have been a flaw so hence the vinyl shield?
Bottomline, this seat is probably not meant for shoulder-lap belt installation. Definitely ok for SL installation. Again, keep in mind $299.
Problem #3 – The Headrest interferes with the shoulder harness in the top slots. My two and a half year old is in the 25th percentile in height which is still in the normal average range. So when I adjusted the shoulder belts in the 2nd from the top slots, everything was ok. I adjusted the headrest down so that it is protecting his head. The headrest comes down to about the bottom of his ear level. After buckling him in, I attempted to tighten the harness and had the darndest time. I could not for the life of me figure out what was causing this even after removing and reinstalling the carseat. I suspected the belt and Safe Stop connector between the bench and carseat may be slightly rubbing but such was not the major problem. After taking off the seat cover, I saw that the shoulder belts were rubbing against the EPS foam of the headrest.
The shoulder belts when snaked through the second from the top slots have to bend underneath the headrest then back through the slots on the seat cover. Sure I could wiggle the headrest up then tighten the harness easier. But then, the headrest has to be wiggled back down and pushed against the already tighten shoulder belts. “It’s too tight, Dada,” said my boy. Not only this but I heard the EPS foam “pop” where the shoulder belt rubbed. The belts were not meant to rub against the EPS foam like this. Not only this but I have some MAJOR concern about this safety feature when the belts do have to work (let’s say from an accident). What will give first, the headrest or broken collar bones. So for $299, is this a good design??
Two competitors that I saw could have this problem as well. BUT, upon inspection, I saw that they accommodated this setup with rollers or incorporated the slots INTO the headrest (thereby having the shoulder belts move up and down WITH the headrest.) MOREOVER, they are LESS than $299.
Problem #4 – The location of the tether with respect to the carseat doesn’t work as well as should. It sits about two-thirds the way up. It should be near the top as the Owner’s Manual shows it. But I suspect that they pushed it down considering my earlier comment regarding the tether interference in rear-facing mode.
The problem that is created here is that either the tether strap will “bunch” down on the back of your seat because the anchored tether location on the carseat is lower than the headrest of the back seat OR the tether strap will be pulling your seat UP while the shoulder-lap belt or SL connections are pulling the opposite direction (when they should restricting the carseat in one direction only.)
In either case, YES, you might have a solid installation. However, call me a civil engineer nerd but the tether strap pulling in the opposite direction seems to place a little more tension on the so-called Super Latch or reduces the original intent of the SL’s providing maximum resistance against G-forces of a front end collision.
So there you have it. My FOUR major problems with this carseat. There are other minor nuisances. I spent near $299 to figure all this out. And I was saying if I could get a refund, I would. But being the heavy monstrosity that it is, that won’t happen.
I gave it two stars because it is a good solid construction with the steel alloy frame. But for the retail price of $299, there are one too many problems with its design to justify its price. And for the price, you would think that they spend more time in thinking the design through.
I tried talking with Russ B at Sunshine Kids but seems like I got brushed underneath the carpet. I own 4 carseats now so I’m hoping I know my carseat business by now. But I got duped into thinking that this was a very safe seat. At the time, yes, it was worth the cost.
Don’t make the same mistake I did.
Rating: 2 / 5
Fact: this car seat is heavy. But that’s it’s only drawback. And the trade-off is that you get a superior car seat — one that is durable, safe, and can be used for years. We have installed it with the seat belt and with the Super Latch, and both ways are quite easy (Super Latch especially). The car seat is definitely sturdy, and I feel reassured knowing my son is in there when we’re traveling. We have also used it twice on an airplane with no hassle — it fit perfectly in the plane seat. The car seat is narrow, so we can fit it plus two adults in the backseat of a car not too uncomfortably (which was not true of our old car seat). Above all, my son (16 months) is so comfortable in the this seat. He loves to be in it, whether the car is moving or not, and sometimes even cries when you take him out. When we have it in the house, he likes to sit in it in the living room and just relax. Seriously! And on a 9-hour international flight, he sat in it almost the entire time and was content and comfortable. This is a excellent car seat, very safe, comfortable, and easy to use. Worth the extra weight.
Rating: 5 / 5