We need hire car for family who are visiting with a newborn

tell your friends to leave the child at home; i mean, canberra is such a lively throbbing place they’ll miss out on all the fun with a baby to drag them down…

Been there done that, best option is to take their own seat, surely they know how to install it?

Sandman said :

Leave mother and baby at airport cafe for half an hour and whiz over to fyshwick in the rental where the baby shop will fit the seat.

You don’t even have to go that far – there’s a Babies R Us in Majura Park Shopping Centre @ the Airport. They often have stuff on sale. Near them is Big W who probably have some seats cheap, too.

I agree with child seats not being the best from hire companies. I used one earlier this year from Europcar in QLD and it was very ordinary.

Just to think outside the box, maybe check with your airline if you can check in your own car seat? I know for older kids you can take the car seat on board some airlines and strap it onto a seat to make their very own safe seat.

On a recent trip to Bangkok with my baby, I pre-booked a taxi from the airport to hotel with a “child seat” fitted in. When I got in the taxi there was a baby bouncer loose on the back seat. Umm, no. He stayed in the Baby Bjorn 🙂

Good luck.

Hi, all the hire car company’s car seats are use over and over so are not in the cleanest condition but all should install them for you if stated in your rental , you should specify you need a rear facing seat . Thrifty is your best bet as their staff are trainned but Avis and buget are fine too and also the same company.

Don’t hire a car seat from a car hire company – they’re not reliably good quality. My experience has been they’re old, often dirty, and not safe.

There are baby gear hire companies that hire out car seats (capsules, for a new born) – and it’s quite cheap. All the seats are Australian standards compliant, and still in code (yep, car seats expire.)

I would not recommend getting one from an op-shop. The thing is, you can never tell if a car seat has been in an accident or not. If it has – even if it looks fine – it may not perform so well in a subsequent crash. All the car seat manuals require replacing of a car seat after an accident.

I wouldn’t use the hire company ones. Either pack your own and bring it, or call one of the baby places and hire from them. We hired a capsule for our newborn instead of buying. Can’t remember the cost but for 6 months it wasn’t really much and a lot less than buying. Leave mother and baby at airport cafe for half an hour and whiz over to fyshwick in the rental where the baby shop will fit the seat.

Kidsafe hire out child seats and baby seats, and fit them.

http://www.kidsafeact.com.au/

What I would do is hire the car and the car seats separately.

Kidsafe hires out car seats for infants and toddlers and installs them. I would contact them and make a booking for hire and installment and take the hire car (or your own car if you have one) to them for seat installation. Obviously, if you’re planning on meeting your friends at the airport you would need to do this before they arrive.

I know when I’ve flown up to visit my parents in Brisbane with my kids this is what I’ve got them to do.

The only thing is that it might be a bit expensive. I do know that I eventually gave in and just bought car seats that I leave in my parents garage up there as a way of saving money. If your friends are planning on being regular visitors this might be the way to go.

Hire a seat from KidSafe. They install it for you.

If you’re an NRMA member, some hire car companies (Hertz?) will give you a free car seat.