Our Britax car seat straps started suddenly slacking on their own after being tightened on our son. We drove 10 minutes away and the straps were completely loose by the time we arrived. The harness worked as designed on the way home but the same issue happened again several times since then — I tightened the harness straps and tested the tightness and the straps completely loosen when pulled. We stopped using the car seat and bought a new car. We are reporting it in case anyone else’s car seats could be affected and cause serious harm in an accident. Our car seat has been installed in our car since we bought it and never been in an accident. The harness straps started randomly disengaging out of the blue. We reached out to Britax about the issue, sent a video of the issue, followed their instructions and their suggestions to vacuum areas of the car seat did not solve the problem. Instead of providing a remedy or offering a replacement, Britax insisted we needed to schedule a video call with a technician as a next step during business hours (when we are working). We chose to stop using the car seat because we are not going to risk our child’s safety by continuing to use a faulty car seat. This form is not allowing me to upload the video of the harness slacking on its own.
2020 Britax E1a38-Marathon CT
Routine
Owners filed 1 complaints about this vehicle with federal regulators, most often about the chest clip, buckle, harness. No safety recall has been issued.
What fails
| Component | Reports | Crashes | Fires | Injuries | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chest Clip, Buckle, Harness | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
What owners reported
Newest filingsChest Clip, Buckle, Harness
Filed Mar 23, 2025CO
1 of 1 complaints, reproduced as filed.
Reading this record
No unusual pattern of severe incidents in the complaint record.
Complaint counts track how many cars were sold and how long they have been on the road as much as they track quality. A common model from 2013 has had a decade to accumulate reports; a rare one from last year has not. The signal worth weighing is in the severity columns, in whether the same component keeps appearing, and in whether the manufacturer eventually opened a recall for it.
Most recent recall on file: none. Source: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.