City Elite Stroller

Review by Hillary L. Wald "hw" : REALLY IS A MUST HAVE FOR BABY

I have a 2 year old AND a 5 month old so taking baby out for quick trips can be too much if she's happy (or asleep!) so i can leave her in her car seat and pop here in her city mini...so great! adaptor pops into the side holes in a minute then you just add the adaptor bar (we have a graco snugride- best car seat imo). Some say that the car seat is not held in securly- this is not the case with ours-maybe they are not puting it in correctly. The car seat actually clicks on just like the snugrider snap n go- you can try to lift it off while on the bar and it will NOT come out unless you press the release lever on the back of the car seat (just as if it was installed on the base in the car!) Does not add any weight to our mini, just makes the fold a bit longer but not that bad. It is a bit of a pain to take the adaptor on and off so plan on keeping it on for the most part (which is ok as my toddler can still use the stroller with the adaptor on it). This is a must have as it is SO much easier keeping baby in seat for errands...you can just lay baby flat for longer outings in your mini/classic/elite as the seat goes flat :) hth!

Review by Joseph S. Soriano "Off-Duty Ninja" : A Must Have

Definitely a must have, especially for your newborn. I've read on someones review that they had to remove the whole seat and was left w/ just the frame itself. We didn't have that problem. We simply snapped the adapter on, secured our car seat on the city mini and we were ready to go; without undoing anything on the city mini. The only complaint I have is that I think the adapter is a little pricey...especially for new parents like us. I'll post a pic w/ the car seat on the city mini soon to show how much the city mini rocks.

Review by M. Hawkins Drain : Does the job, a little cumbersome, a little expensive

This is definitely useful in the first few weeks. It's so much easier to put the whole seat on the stroller so as not to disturb the baby, plus it enables you to have the baby facing you so you can keep an eye on them. However, when it's on you can't really collapse the stroller, which is of course the whole point of having a City Mini. It's also pretty darn expensive. You could technically buy a stroller frame for less money, although you would lose the excellent handling of the City Mini. So it really depends on what you need to use your stroller for. If it's only for quick trips on flat terrain, you could probably just get a stroller frame. But if you're going on neighborhood walks on rough sidewalks or at the park, etc., I'd definitely go with the car seat adapter.Once our baby turned about 8 weeks old, she had great head control so we simply started putting her in the main seat of the stroller with a head support pillow and the seat reclined. While the seat adapter was definitely useful to us, I'm not sure if it was worth $60 to us for only two months of use.

Review by MRM : Unstable with City Mini

We decided to buy only one stroller (City Mini) and rely, as possible, on available accessories to maximize its functionality. Since babies are not really supposed to ride on the City Mini, we decided to buy this adaptor in order to use our Peg-Perego Primo Viaggio SIP 30-30 car seat. The adaptor attached very well to the stroller. It was easy to install. The adaptor is made of a very light and sturdy material. We haven't used it much, but it looks and feels very resistant and durable. The car seat snaps very easily and remains attached to the stroller even under severe stress. The adaptor makes the car seat sit high enough such that you can have your baby at comfortable distance. In terms of built, installation, etc this product gets "thumbs up". However, our biggest concern (therefore the rating) is that the City Mini became unstable (even more). The adaptor makes the car seat sit at a relatively high position, which combined with the very light built of the Mini, makes the stroller somewhat unstable, specially when going through rough or uneven terrain. In oder words, our biggest problem was not the adaptor itself, but the ability to use a car seat with this stroller. It ended up being that one of the City Mini's greatest feature: its lightness, makes using a car seat somewhat unsafe. The adaptor is also a little pricey. For that money you can buy a Snap-N-Go, which will definitely fit almost any car seat and eliminate any instability. We ended up doing that and it has worked very well.

Review by Todd Sussman : Not the best fit.....Engineering must have been at lunch.

So we bought the Citimini, Chicco Keyfit 30 and the adapter kit. I was under the impression that this adapter kit would actually latch into the car seat, similar to the car seat base. Perhaps I just didn't research it close enough. I was taken in by the custom fit for Chicco statement. Here's my impression. When the adapter kit is installed on the Citimini it is fairly substantial. It fits well, mounts into the click locks very nicely. This issue I have is that the car seat just balances on the adapter bars. The only lock is a belt that wraps around the whole seat. With the belt on and secured the seat is still loose and very wobbly. I'm not happy. I'll end up using additional straps to better secure it. What really disappoints me is this industry is plagued with bad engineering. We as consumers try and review all the recalls and buy the safest most reliable brands to keep our babies out of harms way. I feel that this bracket is not up to standard for the Chicco car seat. Perhaps it's the only option......Do your research.

Review by Mackenzie Turner "New Mom" : I'm a fan!

I have the City Mini Jogger and the Maxi Cosi "Mico" Car Seat (which i love both dearly) and the adapter works great. I kinda wish it made a clicking noise when its secured in the stroller, but it just makes the side buttons pop out...which is fine for me too. There were a bunch of other adapters with bars and stuff for other car seats, but I only needed the side ones...nice! (Especially since you can leave the attachments in when you want to collaps the stroller!) Enjoy!

Review by Brian R Blank : Using the Adapter with the Graco Snugride 35

At first the Adapter seemed to be incompatible with the Graco Snugride 35 and the directions were horrible. So I returned it back to Buy Buy Baby. But while I was at the store returning the product, the sales person showed me a floor sample and how to properly install the product. I took pictures and posted them above as it is not intuitive and is not mentioned in the product directions. The bar must be installed such that it will lock in the seat. You won't hear a click because the bar is a little too small, but it does lock the seat in place. The belt click must be used. I originally set the belt straight up and over the top of the car seat, but felt that it left no room for the baby to sit in the seat. The sales person at buy buy baby showed me that the belt must not be straight, but must hook around a ledge which holds the seat in place and doesn't interfere with where the baby is sitting. Finally, the seat is set back underneath the canopy of the baby jogger mini stroller which adds extra protection.

Review by Shop Girl : Pretty good but not perfect

The car seat adapter works well with our Graco Snugride, but doesn't completely snap into the stroller. It seems like the adapter might pop out at any second and send our little bundle tumbling on the ground. We ran the safety strap around the back of the stroller for added security and that solved the problem. If you do this, just be sure the strap is out of the way when you go to open the stroller. We've used this probably 50 times so far with no problems.

Review by Ryan Scott "novice planter" : Baby Jogger City Mini Car Seat Adaptor

I purchased the car seat adaptor with the intentions of the Baby Jogger City Mini (BJCM) being my one and only stroller. While I do think that using this adaptor makes it definitely worthwhile to be able to use this stroller (BJCM) for anything and everything, it made it to where it wasn't a quick "snap the carseat on and go" type of adaptor. I used this with a Graco Snugride car seat. What you do when you get the "kit" is slide the bar into the two black adaptors (that connect to the seat) with the bar pointing up or down depending on the type of car seat you are going to be using. Then you will connect the black pieces to the stroller and using your car seat, adjust how far out the bar needs to be for it to attach your car seat to it. Pretty simple overall, but I found that I did need to adjust our bar a handfull of times in the 7 months that we used it. You do have to fasten a strap around (over) the car seat for safety reasons because otherwise the car seat could essentially tip over and fall off the stroller. This is where the convienance of being able to "snap the car seat on and go" lacked. In order to get the car seat on properly, you often had to get down to eye level and see if the car seat was sitting on the black "nesting" areas, and then check the bar length followed by securing the car seat with the strap. If your child isn't already in the car seat when you secure it, it can be a pain to then properly put your child in. So while this is definitely great to have, just know that you won't have the "snap and go" convienance of other strollers while using a car seat with it. Also I did not have to remove the stroller fabric to use our City Mini with the car seat adaptor. I had read that it was recommended to to, but felt it was not in my best interest to do if it was necessary, and for me it wasn't necessary.

Review by J. Weatherford : It works, but do you need it?

I sent this back after I actually saw it. As other reviews note, it's $60 for basically a metal bar and brackets. I guess it's the kind of item where you want it to be overbuilt, but I also think the Baby Jogger folks know they have this particular market cornered. We're thinking we'll generally rather carry in the sling or chest pack while he's still too small for the regular stroller, but I can't fully testify to that yet. Finally, this rig is the same price as a new Snap n Go, and we were able to find one used (a Snap n Go) for practically nothing. I'm looking forward to using the stroller, but as for the bar it wasn't so much the actual money that made send it back as the sneaking suspicion that I'd been had. Maybe find another solution for the few months they can't just ride in the stroller.