The best car seat is the one that fits your child, vehicle, budget, and lifestyle and has the features important to you. The safest car seat is the one you can install correctly and use properly on every ride! Let us know in the comment section what questions you have about this Baby Jogger City Go 2 infant car seat review. And if you want to compare car seats and let us help you find your recommended car seats, our Car Seat Buying Kits are your best bet!
Baby Jogger City Go 2 Car Seat Review (USA)
The Baby Jogger City Go 2 is an infant seat that has been around for a while now. It’s made by the same parent company as Graco. If you’re looking for an infant car seat that is part of a travel system, this seat is compatible with Baby Jogger Strollers. The car seat base has a RapidLock mechanism that makes installation with a vehicle belt very simple. We also like that it has an anti-rebound bar. It is not one of our favorite options for small babies or preemies like these options would be. However, for your average newborn, it’s a solid option to consider!
Type
An infant car seat
When
From birth
Age
From birth until it’s outgrown, between 9-12 months
What you need to know before you go.*
Rear-Facing Stats
- height limit: 32″
- weight limit: 4-35 pounds
- head height rules: at least 1″ below the top of the headrest
- preemie fit: sometimes works
Other Seat Stats
- width of seat: 17.5”
- weight of seat: 11.5 pounds
- crash replacement policy: Always replace
- expiration limits: 7 years
- harness: no-rethread
- lock-off: yes
- handle positions for the vehicle: any locked position
*Head to the Car Seat Buying Kits for a complete database of all car seat stats for our recommended car seats.
✅ Seat is Good for You If:
✅ You want a seat with an easy installation.
The RapidLock mechanism makes proper installation on this seat with the vehicle seat belt easy and fast. You open the RapidLock arm, thread the seat belt underneath it, tighten it up, and then close the arm. Check for 1″ of movement and make any adjustment as needed.
✅ You need to fit 3 across.
This seat is only 17.5″ wide and it has a seat belt lock-off, which makes it a good choice in a 3 across configuration. The lock-off helps you get a tight, secure installation, even if you need to move the base closer to the door in order to fit another seat beside it.
🚩 Use Caution If:
🚩 You have a small back seat.
This car seat takes up a good bit of space front-to-back when it’s installed in the car. It won’t be the best choice for small backseats or for tall front-seat passengers. You can find better options here.
️ Stand Out Features:
anti-rebound bar
The base of the Baby Jogger City Go 2 infant car seat has an anti-rebound bar (ARB) built into it. The anti-rebound bar is an added safety feature for rear-facing that can reduce the secondary movement of the car seat, called rebound, during a crash. When a collision occurs, the car seat will move forward, towards the front of the vehicle, and rotate downward. And as we all know from high school physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction — so after that initial movement, the car seat will rebound, or “bounce back” towards the backrest of the vehicle seat. The ARB minimizes this bounce-back effect, helping limit the car seat movement and your child inside it! ARBs may also limit the side-to-side rotation of the car seat in a side-impact collision. Overall, it’s a great feature on a rear-facing car seat!
Seat Belt Lock-off
The RapidLock lock-off helps you get a tight installation. This is especially nice in the center seating position of most vehicles, as lower anchors are not an option generally. This would also allow you to use the seat in vehicles made before 1996, which would not have locking seat belts. Or in international vehicles, which would also have non-locking seat belts.
European Seat Belt Routing for Baseless Mode
This seat can be installed baseless with European or American/Standard belt routing. You can find a video showing both of those methods here. The European routing method is preferred! Baby Jogger refers to this as the taxi-safe belt path. European belt routing means the shoulder belt portion of the seat belt is routed behind the shell of the rear-facing seat, limiting its ability to rotate down in a frontal crash. This routing functions similarly to a load leg. Pretty cool, huh?!
✈️ Airplane Use
The Baby Jogger City Go 2 infant car seat is a recommended choice for both domestic and international travel as it is FAA-approved. When traveling within the United States and Canada, installing the seat without the base is a breeze, as the seat belts in these countries have locking mechanisms that ensure a secure fit. For international travel, it is recommended to pack the base in your luggage and utilize its seat belt lock-off or lower anchors for installation because, typically, seat belts in other countries will not lock. If you choose not to travel with the base, you will need to contact the manufacturer for a locking clip and learn how to use it before you travel.
For help with all things airplane travel and car seats, check out our Wheels Up Course and private Facebook group.
SITS Bottom Line
In summary, the Baby Jogger City Go 2 infant car seat offers easy installation with its RapidLock mechanism, making it ideal for those who value convenience. Its narrow width and seat belt lock-off make it suitable for fitting three car seats across. However, it may not be the best choice for small back seats or tall front passengers. Notable features include an anti-rebound bar for added safety and a seat belt lock-off for secure installation.
Check out this Amazon Live for more seats we recommend and the standout features we love.
Other Versions of this Seat:
Baby Jogger City Go* (Canada)
*A SITS recommended seat. Recommended seats are in our Buying Kits because they have ranked high on our vehicle, child, ease of use, and features scales.
Compare Car Seats
Looking to compare infant car seats and narrow down the best car seat for your family? The Infant Car Seat Buying Kit walks you through our 7Cs of selection, then on to an interactive quiz, and finally, a recommended car seat list is generated just for you! If you are overwhelmed and sick of spending hours researching and reading car seat reviews like this one, the Buying Kit will guide you to Safe in the Seat’s recommended car seats for you in under 30 minutes!
We check every day for our recommended car seats on sale, and we have all the deals here for you. Shopping in Canada? Find today’s seat sales in Canada here.
What About Seats We Don’t Recommend?
Just like anyone, we have preferences! This goes for car seats, too. If we don’t recommend a car seat, it’s not because it’s unsafe for your little one. All car seats are safe if they’re installed and used properly, are not expired or damaged, and when they’re made and sold by a reputable manufacturer and/or retailer. Click here for our full list of car seats that we do not recommend.
A note about crash-tests
How does the Baby Jogger City Go 2 perform in crash tests?
Well, that’s a great question. We know that it passes the strict federally required testing that applies to all car seats sold in the United States. But we don’t know exactly how it performs. That data isn’t released by any official sources in the US — not by car seat manufacturers, not by government agencies like NHTSA, not anywhere!
There are a few third-party websites that claim to offer objective crash test data for a variety of car seats. But we at Safe in the Seat don’t pay attention to that data for a few big reasons. First of all, third-party crash tests don’t actually give us meaningful data! Car seat manufacturers crash-test their products hundreds, even upwards of a thousand times. They crash test the finished product in every single installation configuration using every applicable-sized crash test dummy, not to mention a whole lot of testing at each stage of the development process too. So one or two crash tests completed by another organization just can’t give the same level of information! One or two crash tests aren’t going to represent the overall average performance of any car seat across its lifespan.
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