The Quinny Zapp Xtra

It probably sounds a bit mad to some people, but I didn’t like using my Quinny Zapp Limited Edition Black chassis with the Zapp Xtra seat unit on, as the Zapp Xtra seat unit framework is silver (to match the standard Zapp chassis) and I thought it looked odd to have the seat frame silver on an all black chassis. For this reason, my Zapp Xtra seat unit was relegated to the cupboard under the stairs for a while.

Meanwhile, my mother in law, who looks after The Boy sometimes, wasn’t getting on with the Quinny Zapp that I’d got to keep at her house. She didn’t get on with the way it folded and unfolded: She said the seat was ‘too upright’ and made The Boy look like he was going to slip out of it (even though he was always harnessed in when he was in it) and that between the harness and the style of the seat fabric The Boy looked like he was ‘dangling’ and uncomfortable. She didn’t get along with the fact that it’s a three wheeler (because she felt like it was going to tip to one side when she went up and down curbs) and she didn’t feel that it was particularly ‘solid’ if she left The Boy in it when he fell asleep while they were out and she wanted to ‘park’ him indoors and leave him to sleep (even though I kept telling her she shouldn’t do that anyway). She didn’t like it on ‘swivel’ front wheel option because she said it was “like an out of control supermarket trolley” but she didn’t like it locked because it is a three wheeler and it was then difficult to steer. Anyway she went on and on relentlessly about all the reasons she found to hate the £155 pushchair that I’d got to keep at her house, so I took it back again. (I ended up purchasing her a Maxi Cosi Mila, which she loves, more on that at a later point). So now I had a Zapp that was surplus to requirements as well as the Zapp Xtra seat unit.

The Zapp I’d got for my mother in law was a standard silver chassis with Rebel Red fabrics, so the silver chassis matched the seat frame of the Zapp Xtra seat unit and gave me an idea. I took the standard Zapp fabrics off the chassis and put the recline adaptors in place and then took the whole thing to my parents holiday home at the coast the next time we went to visit them there for the day. Folded down, the Zapp chassis fits nicely under one of the sofas and the seat unit stands in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom. Now I’ve got a pushchair there that can be used when we’re there or when my parents take The Boy there for a day or overnight which saves space in the car when you’re making the journey as you don’t need to worry about taking a pushchair, and I’ve freed up the space under my stairs again. My mum likes the Zapp (now she’s figured out the fold and unfold method!) she loves that with the Zapp Xtra seat unit she can have The Boy in ‘grandparent facing’ mode and she loves that she can recline it so easily. I got a Rebel Red Zapp footmuff (to go with the standard fabrics that were on it in the first place) which contrast with the Rocking Black Zapp Xtra seat unit and now even on the chilliest of days The Boy is snug and cosy in the pushchair when his nanny takes him for a cliff top walk after lunch! I also have a Rebel Red parasol and parasol clip for my own Zapp, which I keep in the boot of my car, so if we’re over there and it’s sunny I can use that on the Zapp Xtra as well.

In addition to this, when The Boy and I went to stay with my parents a few weeks ago, they took the Zapp Xtra back to their house from the holiday home for us to use – again it saved space in my car and meant I didn’t have to take a pushchair, but there was one there for us to use and it was compact enough that I stuck it in the boot of my car and it didn’t take up all the room available. I only used it once – when we went to visit a friend and couldn’t park anywhere near their house, so I had to park in a back street quite a distance away and walk to their house – but The Boy was snug and cosy in the footmuff and comfortable in the Zapp Xtra as we trotted about five or ten minutes to their house. I could have managed with him in my arms – just about, he’s quite a weight and a real wriggler – but it was more convenient to have him in the pushchair. Plus when we got to their house after playing for a while and wanting to settle down for a nap, I put The Boy into the Zapp Xtra and he dozed off and had a ten minute cat nap before we went back to the car to go back to my parents house.

For use like this, the Zapp Xtra comes into its own; lightweight, small sized and easy to manoeuvre, it is the ideal urban buggy for getting around. It’s rubbish on rough terrain (at the holiday home, mum goes for walks on the grass and its very bumpy, though that’s generally the point at which The Boy falls asleep I wouldn’t be happy with a young baby being in the Zapp Xtra on that kind of terrain) but it’s smart, nippy and practical for stowing in the car boot and popping into the shops or out to a friends house. I wouldn’t use it for long distance walking just for the fact that it doesn’t seem very comfortable for that – the handlebars are hard plastic which makes my hands hurt after a while, and for LO there isn’t any suspension and the wheels are solid so it’s a fairly rough ride. The addition of the footmuff on the seat unit makes it look a lot more comfy – whether this is imaginary or not – because you can take the front off the Quinny footmuff and leave a cosy, fleece liner on the seat it gives it a softer, more comfortable look. The only downfall of this product is the fact that by adding the Xtra seat unit and providing recline and parent facing options, Quinny have negated the point of the chassis being so small, compact and lightweight – the Xtra seat unit flattens down but doesn’t fold, so as well as the chassis you’ve now got a seat unit to carry around with you. The seat unit doesn’t fit in the travel bag, only the chassis will, so while the chassis can go into the travel bag and is suitable to put in an overhead storage compartment on an aircraft, in a coach or on the train, with the Xtra seat unit as well that isn’t going to be possible. Having said that I’m unsure whether they could develop any way of folding down the seat unit so that it does collapse into something more manageable for travel purposes.

I do like the Quinny Zapp Xtra, but let me put it this way, if it was my only pushchair I wouldn’t be impressed; as my ‘holiday’ pushchair (or at least, the pushchair at the holiday home) it is ideal. My faithful car boot companion will remain to be the standard Quinny Zapp as it does fold up so well and I don’t have a separate seat unit to worry about, and for my long walks, shopping in town, meanders through the countryside and day trips to the beach, you can’t beat the Maxi Cosi Mura 3. Lucky for me that I didn’t have to pick just one!

Product Review - Pushchair Footmuffs

When The Boy was born it was the middle of summer, but I still chose to get the footmuffs available for the Maxi Cosi Mura and the Quinny Zapp as I realised that the colours I had (Tango Red for the Mura and Rebel Red for the Zapp) may be discontinued in the next collection and obtaining a footmuff to match might not be very easy. I got them and squirreled them away for future use.

Last winter, if we went out in the car and used the Zapp chassis it was with the Maxi Cosi CabrioFix carseat, for which I also had the matching Tango Red footmuff. The Boy was always lovely and warm in the footmuff, though I must say sometimes a little too warm – you have to be very careful not to roast them in the footmuff in the car as it is very generously padded and even in snow and freezing conditions, The Boy was plenty warm enough wearing just ‘indoor’ clothes inside the footmuff, he certainly didn’t need a hat or jumper or jacket or anything additional.  (On another note, I recently found out that you shouldn’t leave kids in too much winter padded clothing in the carseat anyway, not just because of overheating but because it means the carseat harness can’t be pulled as tightly as it should and in the event of an accident it leaves them too much movement before the harness stops them) Once I even drove in particularly chilly conditions with him in the carseat footmuff wearing only a vest and sleepsuit and when we got home he was as toasty as anything! If we went out with the Mura last winter he was in the carrycot so we didn’t need to worry about a footmuff then, either, as he was bundled up with blankets or a snowsuit to keep him cosy.

This year though, he’s travelling by car in the Opal which means we have to take him out at each destination and put him into the Zapp, or else if we’re out with the Mura he’s in the regular seat unit for it, and since he doesn’t keep blankets on very well I was glad I’d invested in both style footmuffs for when the weather turned. While it’s sunshine and blue skies again today, a couple of weeks ago was particularly chilly in this neck of the woods, so I got out the footmuffs to fit them.

First of all was the Mura footmuff. It’s not one specific for the Mura, it can be used with any of the Maxi Cosi pushchairs, and it’s very cute, featuring two legs that can be poppered together or left for the child to wave about as desired; The top part is a wrap-around style with Velcro fastening and if, like my son, your child wants their arms free there is a little zip either side you can undo and poke their arms through. In addition the footmuff has a hood, and while the outside is water resistant nylon the inside is beautiful soft fleece lined. It’s fiddly to fit and it took me about ten minutes to get it right and get the harness adjusted properly once it was in place (it took a bit of length out of the existing harness length so I had to adjust it to secure The Boy in properly) but since the harness had been on minimum and he’s now 13 months old there’s still loads more harness left so this wasn’t an issue at all. The RRP for the Maxi Cosi footmuff is £50 so it isn’t exactly cheap but it’s a generous size with different holes to match up with the holes on the Mura seat as you put the harness up to the next level so I think it will last a while and it provides a very cosy and warm environment for LO to snuggle down in. You can undo both leg sections with independent zips that start at the bottom and come up and out over the leg to the hip, so you can even use it when they’re a bit long for it and just have the zip undone and their feet coming out the bottom! The waistband of the leg section is elasticated and undoes/does up quickly and easily with a little plastic toggle on both sides and as the legs are separate it isn’t any trouble to use the footmuff on the Mura with the T bar still in place (The Boy loves the T bar because he holds it like motorbike handlebars and makes motorbike noises as we’re walking!) The only issue I have with it is the fact that once it’s on, you won’t want to keep fussing about taking it off/putting it back on again etc, so now the nicer weather seems to have returned as much as I don’t want to mess about with it again it really is too warm to put The Boy in for going out which is a bit of a pain.  It isn’t the type of thing you’d be able to do in a hurry, one handed while you grapple with the child with the other hand, so it’s not like you could leave it in the basket or in your nappy bag and pop it on while you’re out should the need arise, and it doesn’t come apart to leave a liner that you could just put the front onto at short notice, so this is a bit of a drawback. However once the winter really sets in and it’s left on there all the time The Boy is going to be lovely and cosy while we’re out (even if I’m not!)



Maxi Cosi footmuff Tango Red (Fits all Maxi Cosi pushchairs)



The Quinny footmuff is another story. A very long sleeping bag style footmuff, again water resistant outer shell with soft fleece lining, it’s absolutely huge and will easily accommodate a much older child than The Boy so you’ll definitely get your moneys worth out of it – RRP is £55 so again not a cheap purchase, but definitely worthwhile. It’s much more straight forward to get on and off the standard Zapp fabric, and with the Zapp Xtra seat it’s just as straight forward. While the style of the Quinny footmuff is more basic and it does mean that The Boy can’t get his hands out if it’s done all the way up, it does mean that his hands and arms are less likely to get chilly and I’ve found I can put his favourite cuddly toy in the footmuff with him anyway and he’s quite happy playing with that and nosing about. Similarly to the Maxi Cosi footmuff, the Quinny one has the harness for the pushchair coming into it to secure it in place and then secure in LO before you do it up and you’re off. The additional feature I love about the Quinny footmuff is the fact that you can remove the front section, leaving the rest of it as a fleecy liner for the pushchair if the additional warmth is not needed, and the front of the footmuff is small enough to be rolled up and put in the Zapp shopping basket in case you need to add it on while you’re out, which is a bonus. This means that I can leave the Quinny footmuff in place on the Zapp regardless of what the weather is like, as I can just add or remove the front of the footmuff as required. The only issue I have noticed with this one is if you use it on a Zapp Xtra. The Xtra seat unit has three different height settings for the shoulder harness straps, and the Quinny footmuff only has two – therefore if you’re using the Zapp Xtra with a young baby who needs the harness height at the lowest, you’re not matching up the holes with the lowest holes on the footmuff. This will then make the footmuff wrinkle right where baby will be sitting/lying and doesn’t seem very comfortable for them. I’m not sure whether this is something Quinny are intending on changing for the 2012 collection but it is something that other customers have also flagged to them on their Facebook page, so I know they’re aware and looking into it.

Quinny footmuff on Quinny Zapp Xtra Rebel Red

Quinny footmuff (for Zapp/Zapp Xtra/Buzz and Speedi)

All in all I am very impressed with the quality of the footmuffs and the size of them – I can see The Boy using them comfortably for some time and he is very tall for his age already – the additions of drawstring around the hood section on both footmuffs to keep chilly wind out of delicate ears is brilliant, and it’s a much better idea to use a footmuff rather than a blanket for The Boy as we’d be forever stopping to pick up the blankets, so I am a very happy mummy with my purchases!

Product Review: Quinny Zapp and Quinny Zapp Xtra

What? Quinny Zapp & Quinny Zapp Xtra

How Much? RRP £155 for the Quinny Zapp: RRP £230 for the Quinny Zapp Xtra OR buy a Zapp Xtra seat unit & recline adaptors as accessory for standard Zapp at RRP £100

Where? Any authorised Quinny retailer

When I went on maternity leave from my job, the lovely people that I work with did a little collection and they brought me a Quinny Zapp in Rebel Red to compliment my existing travel system. As I've already mentioned, I have the Maxi Cosi Mura 3 for my 'home' pushchair, but it isn't the most practical item to fit into my car when I'm going a longer distance and need to take a lot of other stuff, for example when we go back Down South in the next couple of weeks to visit my sister-in-law, who is due to have her first baby any day now, we will need a bag or two of belongings with us and a set of wheels, and with that in mind I have a problem; I needed a bigger car, or a smaller pushchair.

Enter the Quinny Zapp ...

Quinny Zapp Rebel Red (2010)

Quinny Zapp chassis (Limited Edition B&W Black chassis 2010) and Maxi Cosi CabrioFix Tango Red (2010)

The Zapp chassis is compatible with the Maxi Cosi CabrioFix and the Maxi Cosi Pebble carseats, and at a lightweight 7.8kg for the chassis and an ultra compact fold, it makes the Zapp an ideal buggy for popping in the car boot of even the smallest vehicle. I can successfully get a weeks worth of grocery shopping, plus Zapp chassis, into the boot of my little car, which is great for me.

The Zapp isn't a standard fold which both my mother and my mother in law can't get to grips with. I love it, because it folds the chassis down much more compact than you'd expect considering its 102cm tall when unfolded (Tall enough for Hubby to use it without stooping, and he's 6ft 1ins). You've got buttons either side of the chassis as you're standing behind it - Number 1 you press in, and because its a memory button it stays in; Then you press number 2, which isn't a memory button so you hold it in; Now with your foot, bring the number 3 unit (on the central tube of the chassis) towards you and the pushchair unfolds. In reality, I find my toe doesn't quite stretch down as far as where the number 3 unit is located (I'm 5ft 6ins - my mother in law is 5ft 4ins and for her its impossible without a limbo-type excersise underneath the handlebars). A lot of the time I end up on my knees to unlock this part with my hands, which I guess shows it could be improved upon. One thing I must say here is that a clean with furniture polish and a soft cloth really does help the fold and unfold mechanism, it makes it much more smooth up the central tube which makes it much easier. Its recommended thats done every six to eight weeks depending on how much you use it, I would say you'd probably need to do it every four to five weeks really to keep it as good as possible. Also the wheels need regular cleaning too, I just unlock mine from the chassis and swirl them about in some warm soapy water, clean the attachments on the chassis with more furniture polish and then rinse and dry the wheels before I put them back on. Also Back to Black (for cars) will bring up the wheels a treat, they'll look as good as new, but as this is a type of polish be very careful as it will mean the unit is more slippery to control and also it means the brakes won't be able to hold as well!

Also when you fold the Zapp down to make sure that front wheel doesn't get damaged in transit, a good tip is to always lock it in the non-swivel position when you fold it down so its more protected and within the chassis but also it means it won't move around and get damaged that way. The Quinny Zapp travel bag is available as an accessory but it is a tight fit and to be honest unless you do a lot of airline or coach travel and particularly want the chassis in a bag then you probably won't get much use out of it. I just put the Zapp in my car boot folded down and it's all fine.

To begin with, I kept the chassis fitted with the carseat adaptors and no fabric in the car boot along with the raincover for the CabrioFix and when we reached where we were going I'd pop the CabrioFix out of the base and off we went. Thinking back now I should have insisted when I was discharged from hospital with The Boy that Hubby brought in the Zapp chassis so I could have wheeled the CabrioFix rather than struggled to carry it from the maternity ward down to the car (why is the maternity ward always the furthest from the carpark?!?) It would have saved me a lot of trouble! (I was insistant that I carried The Boy out of hospital and wouldn't allow Hubby or mother in law to help at all!) But despite that, afterwards the Zapp chassis travelled everywhere in the car with us, and proved its worth time and time again. I will say that when the CabrioFix had the summer cover on it, due to where the fixing points are under the handlebar knuckles, it did make putting the carseat onto pushchair adaptors more difficult as sometimes you had to try and get them in the right place before the carseat would click into position properly.

I'm glad I took the Mura when I went to stay with my parents - because I took The Boy out for many long walks using the Mura carrycot, and he wouldn't have been as comfy in the CabrioFix, and also because when it snowed, the Mura got through it like the Zapp wouldn't have hoped to in a million years! But generally speaking for standard UK weather, the Zapp is fab. Its lightweight, so its easy to lift in and out of the car, but a downside of this is that you really cannot hang anything from the handles. I know all manufacturers say this, and all mums go, Yeah, yeah, whatever, and hang stuff from the handles anyway, but with the Zapp the manufacturers do mean it. Its such a lightweight product that even the weight of a jacket on the handlebars can alter the centre of balance enough. And again while manufacturers always say keep your hands on the handles at all times and all mums say, Yeah, yeah, whatever, it is again really important with the Zapp, as due to the lightweight chassis a child kicking out or wriggling about a lot could easily throw the Zapp off balance (especially the rather large four year old I saw in town having a paddy the other day in a Zapp!) The good news is though that since 2010 the Zapp has a little shopping basket (doesn't hold much, but it is enough for a couple of small items) I tend to keep my raincover in the shopping basket when I'm out with the Zapp, but you can't leave it in the shopping basket when you fold it up as the fold mechanism needs the basket to move with it, so it has to be emptied prior to folding.

Since The Boy became too large for the CabrioFix and I changed over to using the Opal carseat, I can no longer pop the carseat onto the chassis when we reach our destination, so I had Hubby fit the seat fabric back into the Zapp chassis, and evicted the CabrioFix raincover out of the car in favour for the standard Zapp one. The Boy loves being in his Zapp as he's world facing and it offers a very upright position compared with a lot of pushchairs; I notice in the Mila he looks like he is quite far back and he strains to sit up further - but while I know he likes being nosey I must admit I still prefer the Mura for longer times in the pushchair as it means I can interact with him much more easily and see what he's up to (he has a habit for pulling off socks, shoes and hats and throwing them around at will when we're out as well as grabbing things off shelves in shops!)

Also with the Zapp I love that its got two pedals; One is the brake on (a nice obvious red triangle) the other is the brake off (a plain grey triangle on the standard Zapp, a black one on the Limited Edition chassis). I'm lucky enough to have a Limited Edition B&W 2010 collection Black Zapp chassis now, which looks amazing with my original Rebel Red fabrics in it, and I'm quite tempted to see if I can find a set of the old colour Cobalt as that was a striking rich blue which I think would look lovely in the Black chassis.

My mum doesn't really like using the Zapp that much, but she's got more confident with it over time, and with the addition of the Zapp Xtra seat and recline adaptors she much prefers it! When we stay at their holiday home on the coast whether its for a day or longer, we put the Zapp Xtra seat unit into the chassis so that The Boy can be parent facing (or rather, grandparent facing!) and reclined for when he drops off to sleep. It saves me having to take the Mura when we visit, which is more space left in the car and less for me to remember, both are good bonus points as far as I'm concerned! Mum really cannot get to grips with the folding and unfolding though, and neither can my dad (maybe a generation thing, because it doesn't do what they expect it to do?) I think that given time they would get the hang of it though. As it is if I leave The Boy with them I put the Zapp into position so its ready to go and even if they don't go out all day and just leave it parked in the corner they're happier that they could go out if they wanted to!

My mother in law hates the Zapp. She says its too heavy (really!?!?) that its awkward to use (she compares it to a supermarket shopping trolley with the front wheel on swivel, but with it locked she complains it is too difficult to steer) She doesn't understand how it folds down or unfolds, and every time she tries to do it she has trouble. She doesn't like the raincover, she doesn't like how upright The Boy sits when he is in it (she says it looks like he's going to tip out) and she doesn't like the fact that she can't recline it if he falls asleep in it. Get the feeling she isn't keen? Well so did I, and since she does look after The Boy quite regularly for the whole day while I'm in the office, I felt it was important that she had something she could work better with! The other week it took her and father in law almost an hour to unfold the Zapp, and she was in a right pickle with it when I got there (I can't for the life of me work out what they expect it to do or how they can get it so wrong every time, but there we go!) so I did some research then popped out after work and did a spot of shopping and brought home a Maxi Cosi Mila. More on that in another blog!!

My Zapp is still a much loved member of the household for me, but it is my car buggy and if I'm going out walking I would never take the Zapp instead of the Mura. I find, especially in our town, that because of the hard wheels and lack of suspension, The Boy looks like he's being jolted about the whole time in the Zapp, whereas in the Mura its a much smoother, more enjoyable ride for him. The Zapp has its place though, most definitely; It made travelling with The Boy when he was younger much easier, just slotting the carseat into the chassis before we took off was great, and now he's older and uses the standard fabric most of the time he gets a nose around when we go to somewhere different, like into the City for the day. As the summer progresses and we go out to zoos, parks etc it is going to be used much more often, and while I don't expect to not have any niggles at all, it certainly does what it says it does, and you can't say fairer than that.

Personally I think the cost of the Zapp Xtra is excessive, and I wouldn't use it as a transport system for a young baby without a carseat - while the Xtra seat does go parent facing and does recline to make it suitable from newborn, personally speaking I feel I would want more protection around a young baby. The first time I used the Xtra seat unit, The Boy was four months old, and I put it away after that until he was eight months old and by then I felt it was more suitable. He was too exposed in the Zapp Xtra seat unit and it doesn't offer a lot of padding either, so I much preferred him to be in the carseat ont he chassis when he was younger. Also I found that when using the Zapp Xtra seat unit in the recline position the hood is inclined to flop down when you go over bumps or in the slightest breeze; Though it has been confirmed that thanks to customer feedback, Quinny are investigating how this can be remedied. When the seat unit is parent facing it won't sit totally upright (the mechanical aspect of the unit makes this impossible to achieve with satisfactory safety results) which will upset a few customers who want older children facing them, as older children will want to sit more upright than this seat can offer in parent facing mode, but I don't know of a pushchair that does offer fully upright in parent facing, correct me if I'm wrong. The industry on the whole seems to believe that once baby is old enough to go forward facing, all us parents will be happy not looking at our precious bundle every few minutes to chat, check they're OK, etc - I know a lot of parents do just stick their kids in a forward facing buggy as early as possible so they can ignore it 90% of the time, but some of us like to interact more with our kids and it doesn't seem fair that we're missing out on this ability with so many of the products right now not offering a full range of parent facing options, but there are apparently a lot of technical problems to overcome.

Anyway I love my Zapp, but I'm not so keen on the Zapp Xtra - I can see why they tried to do it, and I hope the customers are happy now their feedback has introduced this new model to the Quinny range, but personally it doesn't rock my world; The only thing I prefer on the Xtra compared to the standard model is that The Boy can be parent facing, but I don't feel this is enough to justify the cost. If anyone is considering a Zapp Xtra this is my advice;

- Don't buy one if you want to take the pushchair walking in the woods, at the beach, or you live in an area with a lot of uneven road surfaces/potholes/cobblestones etc to negotiate. The Zapp is fine for smooth surfaces like shopping malls, supermarkets etc, but anything else is a pretty rough ride for a young baby.

- If you get one, get the shopping basket for it, as that will make all the difference when its a case of carrying shopping or fitting it into the basket, but unless you particularly think you'll need the travel bag don't bother with that! Also I think it would be fairly preferable to have a parasol on the chassis, as the sun canopy is deep but quite high, making it fine for an older, taller child, but not as suitable for a younger child.

I give the Zapp a four out of five: It really could do with softer wheels or some suspension, but ultimately you get a basic pushchair for your money that you can use with your Maxi Cosi Group 0+ carseat so it does what it says on the box and you can't really complain!

The Zapp Xtra I'm not impressed with :( I'd give it three out of five, simply because I think they didn't take it far enough to make it entirely suitable for a young baby to use. More padding or a baby nest for the seat unit would be a welcome addition.