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 review of the Diono Solana 2 booster seat.
Diono Solana 2 LATCH Car Seat Review (USA/Canada)
In this review, we’ll take a close look at why the Diono Solana 2 booster may be a good option for your booster-aged child. It’s a great option for high percentile kids as it has a wide seat pan and a higher standing height limit than most of the boosters on the market. Continue reading this Diono Solana 2 Backless Booster Seat review to see if this is the best seat for your child!
What
A backless booster seat
When
From 5+, but the child must be mature enough to sit properly at all times
Age
From 5 years until outgrown (10-12 years old)
What you need to know before you go.
Backless Booster Stats
- height limit: 38-63″
- weight limit: 40-120 pounds
- head height rules: ears must be contained within the vehicle’s headrest
Other Seat Stats
- width of seat: 18.5”
- weight of seat: 6 pounds
- crash replacement policy: replace after a moderate or severe crash
- expiration limits: 8 years
- cup holders: 2, retractable
✅ Seat is good for you if you:
✅ have a high percentile child
The Diono Solana 2 booster is great for your big kid, andone of our favorites for high percentile kids for two main reasons. First, it has high limits of 120 pounds and 63 inches. Many boosters have 57″ limits, even though only about half of the kids who reach 57″ can fit into the adult seat belt properly. This backless booster also has a wider seat pan than many boosters so it can accommodate a larger child without causing them discomfort.
🚩 Use Caution If you:
🚩 need to fit three car seats across in the back seat
This seat is 18.5″ wide, so if you need to fit 3 across in your vehicle, the Diono Solana 2 is probably not the seat for you. If you are looking for narrow options, head here.
️ Stand Out Features:
⭐ lower anchors
The Diono Solana 2 LATCH booster comes with lower anchors to hold it into the vehicle. They are optional, but using them keeps the booster in place when the child is buckling and it keeps it from becoming a projectile in a crash if the child is not riding in it. If you do not use the lower anchors, the child should buckle in the seat belt over the booster whenever they are being dropped off.
⭐ lightweight
At only 6.6 pounds, this is a fairly lightweight option compared to when your child was using a harnessed seat! This makes is easier to carry around to different vehicles when needed.
✈️ Airplane Use
Like all boosters, the Diono Solana 2 does NOT have aircraft approval. But because it is so small, this is still a great option when traveling via airplanes. You can have it under the seat in front of you or stick it in one of your bags, it’s just not suitable for installation on the airplane. For help with all things airplane travel and car seats, check out our Wheels Up Course and private Facebook group.
SITS Bottom Line
This is a great, inexpensive booster option for any child who is mature enough to sit properly and is at least 40 pounds. But it’s especially great for even the kids who are high percentile for height and/or weight. The lower anchors are a nice added feature, along with the two, retractable cupholders. If you are looking for a seat to fit in a three across configuration though, this is probably not the booster you want to buy.
Other Versions of this Seat:
Diono Solana 2* (US) – no lower anchors
Diono Solana 2* (Canada) – no lower anchors
Diono Solana 2 LATCH* (Canada) – no differences
*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 scale.
Compare Car Seats
Looking to compare car seats and narrow down the best car seat for your family? The Forward-Facing and Booster 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 Diono Solana 2 LATCH 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. The important thing is to always read the manual before using any car seat or booster.
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