help me choose car seats!

[MadiMamacita]

I work for a non-profit child care and we are in need of new car seats for our bus.
We transport kids on a daily basis who are 0-3 year olds, but ocassionaly up to 5 years old.

Here are our requirements:
lock offs
no re-thread harnesses
narrow - we need to put two side by side on the bus seats and they are pretty small
*short shell- there isn't much room between seat backs so a shorter shell is good for our rear facing seats, but we can have a taller shell for ff seats.
cheap to moderately priced- we are a non profit with a tight budget!

Thanks!

[an_aurora]

Honestly the cheapest seat that would fit all of those requirements are the Britaxes. 

Is it a bus or a van?  Is there lap/shoulder belts or lap belts?  What year is it?

If it's a bus, it likely has lap-only belts, which lock, which negates the need for a lockoff.  In that case, you could go with the Complete Air or the Evenflo Triumph, but of course the Triumph is huge.  

[DahliaRW]

If you can get rid of the lockoff requirement then you'd have more affordable options.  Without lockoff the maestro would be a good inexpensive ffing seat.

[MadiMamacita]

its a bus, it has shoulder belts.

I suppose we could do without lockoffs.

Aren't Britaxes huge?

[Drummer's Wife]

Do the seat belts not lock?  That is the only reason you'd need lock offs, and they wouldn't even have to be built in ones unless you are re-installing the car seats daily, IMO. 

The one's that have lock-offs, are going to be the more expensive seats (like almost $300 a piece).  I would just buy a bunch of Sceneras and high back boosters and call it a day.  The new ones have a RF'ing limit of 40 lbs, and the shell is short enough that the seat doesn't take up too much room. 

[MadiMamacita]

we have sceneras now.

the seat belts don't lock- we don't uninstall more than once or twice a month, but its a huge job to reinstall 12 car seats.

at this point the most important features are no-rethread harnesses and being narrow.

[MadiMamacita]

Does anyone who owns a Comfort Air want to post some dimensions for me? I cant seem to find that info. specifically how wide is it at its widest point?

[DahliaRW]

Do you mean the complete air?  http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=150644

[MadiMamacita]

yes sorry! doing too many things at once!

ETA this is not a full sized bus, it is a short bus.

I have been reading a lot about buses and car seats, but I'm not sure any of this applies to a non-full sized bus. at the very least, being that we transport very young kids, compartmentalization does not apply.

In personal cars I am very verbal about keeping kids RF. On the bus I always try to get the transportation people to RF the over 1 crowd, but it is sometimes like talking to a brick wall. since buses in general are so much safer than cars, am I wasting my time trying to get people to keep RF past 1year/20lbs on the bus?
Edited by MadiMamacita - 4/16/11 at 5:49pm