Nuna Rava Car Seat Review
Price $449
BUY NOW Nordstrom Pottery Barn BabyParents: if you like the Pipa, you’ll love the Nuna Rava. This great looking convertible car seat by the Dutch company Nuna brings fashion + the great safety features Nuna is known for. Note: like all of our reviews, this Nuna Rava car seat review is totally unsponsored 😎.
Yes folks, it is the Tesla of car seats: expensive and great looking, yet eco-friendly and highly functional.
At $450, it’s one of the most expensive convertible car seats on the market, just slightly less than the beloved Clek Foonf.
Be advised that Nuna makes an “all-in-one” seat called the Nuna Exec for $200 more that goes from infancy through elementary school (it becomes a booster seat). I you want to buy just one seat for your child’s car seat days, this is a good one.
Fit and Finish
For starters, we love that every Nuna car seat in 2020 is now completely flame-retardant free (“FR-free”). Yes, most other brands have to meet flammability requirements by treating their soft goods with highly-toxic flame retardants, but Nuna meets the requirement by using materials that are naturally flame-resistant (typically by using wool blends).
This seat is offered in 50 shades of grey (kidding)(sort of), plus a rose color (more of a mauve) that is to die for. There’s also an adorable “broken arrow” pattern happening at Pottery Barn Kids.
The seat itself is steel-reinforced, which makes it very heavy (27 lbs!). And trust me, you want a heavy seat in an accident. On the flip side… this is not the seat for parents who need to move it from car to car, nor it is a good seat for travel.
Yes, the fabrics are top-notch: buttery and delicious. It comes with a high-quality infant insert, though we don’t recommend this seat for preemies and newborns (it tends to fit most babies by 3 months or so). For this reason, it’s not our favorite infant car seat.
Installation
Installation is where this seat really shines. Car seat installation can be complicated, but the Nuna Rava makes it simple. Similar to the ClickTight feature found on the higher-end Britax seats, such as the Britax Marathon, Boulevard, and Advocate, the Rava boasts a similar seat belt locking mechanism called “Simply Secure”.
Yes, this seat has LATCH connectors, just like any other seat, but Nuna is really pushing parents to use the vehicle seat belt to install the Rava. Lots of reasons for this, the main one being that LATCH has a weight limit, which includes a calculation of your child + the weight of the seat, and most people don’t know about it/don’t know how to calculate it and… suffice it to say it’s very error-prone.
Good thing they’ve made it extremely easy to install it using the seat belt. Here goes:
Pull back the seat fabrics and essentially, the “seat” of the car seat opens up like a hatch (their branded term for this is “true tension door”).
Here, you thread the seat belt in and out through the side cup holders:
…then you close the hatch (below), which thereby secures the seatbelt by clamping down on it.
No wrangling or tugging required!
It’s a very easy and secure installation, though you should know that you still need to lock your seatbelt using this method.
Locking a seatbelt is easy: simply pull the belt alllll the way out, then slowly let it retract. This “locks” the seatbelt (doesn’t allow any forward movement), which adds security in case of an accident.
Extended Leg Room
Yes, this seat excels for rear facing with a rear facing weight limit of 50 lbs. It has a flip-out panel that gives you additional legroom, if needed.
Most people don’t know about this feature, but it’s super useful. It’s very similar to the extension feature found on the Graco Extend2Fit.
Daily Usability
There are several other little details that make this seat a pleasure to use.
Getting your kiddo in and out of the seat is a breeze with awesome little harness holders that keep the straps out of the way.
Adjusting the seat for height is also a breeze with a smooth “no re-thread harness”, which has 10 height positions — and 2 positions on the crotch strap.
It has 10 recline positions, which are super easy to achieve (unlike others seats that require some muscle to recline).
Need a cup holder or two? Yes! The seat was designed to be on the narrow side, complete with collapsible cup holders – one on each side. This is nice for parents who are trying to conserve space in the back seat for other passengers.
Nuna Rava Review: Bottom Line
Watch out Peg Perego, the Nuna Rava is the new(ish) fancy convertible Euro seat to beat. This seat is first-rate quality from top to bottom. It has a super easy to use seatbelt installation feature and all the convenience features parents want. It has an extended leg room feature, which makes it ideal for extended rear facing. It’s eco-friendly “FR-free” and simply beautiful. This is a top choice for parents who can afford the steep price tag.
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Wonderful review of a wonderful car seat of which we have 3. I just wanted to add that it’s worth waiting for sales in Nordstorm to get it, they offer them at a much better price. Some colors do sell out faster but I got one of the gray ones we love it.
Why isn’t it a good seat for travel? Do you mean flying or road-trips?
Flying. Because it’s quite heavy.