Stokke Crusi Review – Single Mode by Best Buggy

I am the first to admit that I have never been a fan of how the Stokke Xplory looks. However, the new Stokke Crusi chassis caught my eye because it is simple, stylish, and has the advantage of the high seat position, and large Xplory seat, and looks more ‘normal’ than the quirky Xplory! However, the Stokke Crusi does not come cheap at £530 just for the chassis, or £879 with the seat unit! We believe this probably makes it possibly the most expensive pushchair currently on the UK market.

The Stokke Crusi can also have a second seat added for a sibling. This in theory sounds like a great idea, but in practice the Crusi makes an impractical double pushchair. Therefore we have written two separate reviews. This review will focus on the Stokke Crusi in single mode. Our review of the Stokke Crusi with Sibling Seat can be found under our “Tandem Pushchairs” section.

Before we continue, we know of five Crusi chassis which have been purchased to date. However four out of these five chassis had faults, or broke within 3 days of purchase, and were returned for refunds. Our Crusi chassis was one of these four which broke. The Stokke Crusi is one of the most expensive pushchairs on the UK market, and to be honest an 80% rate of breakage / faults from new, for what should be a quality product, is appalling.
The warranty on a Crusi is therefore worth a lot – this is not a pushchair to buy second hand!

However, we did like the Crusi as a single pushchair, so this is our review.

First Impressions, fold and seat unit:

The Crusi can be bought as a complete Crusi pushchair ie seat and chassis, or can be bought as a separate chassis onto which any V3 Evo Xplory seat can be fitted. If the plan is to use the Crusi with a sibling seat, then only the Xplory V3 Evo seats manufactured after November 2012 can be used. There is more explanation about this in our Crusi with Sibling seat review.

The Crusi chassis itself is long (98cms) when folded, but is neat and flat to store. The seat unit nests neatly inside the chassis when folded. The Crusi can not be folded with the seat unit left in situ. The Crusi chassis is reasonably heavy for a single pushchair.

Opening the chassis was simple. There is no autolock on the Crusi and the two sets of wheels simply slide apart with a little pressure on the handle. The handle is stored down low and thus needs extending upwards. The button on the centre of the handle is easy to depress and the handlebar simply slides upwards. The handle needs a small tug to pull the handle out. Several times I thought I had fully extended the handle, but I had not.
Folding the chassis is just as simple. Then there are two large white buttons – one on either side of the chassis which need pressing in, and then sliding up whilst pulling towards you. The chassis will then fold very simply.
The wheels don’t ‘flap’ when folded despite there being no autolock, and as one of our photos shows, we could even get the chassis to freestand without the wheels splaying apart.

The seat unit can be placed either forward or parent facing. It is easy to squeeze the large white buttons underneath the lower edge of the hood and lift the seat off and turn it around to face the other way, or to remove for storing. We liked that there are indicators to tell you when the seat unit is properly secure. However, as some of our photos show, we did have indicators which were half green and half red which really not helpful!

The Crusi / Xplory seat itself is very comfortable and padded. The seat is tall with lots of head room and space for even an older child to fully recline. Both our children (2 and 4) could fit easily in the seat. Our eldest reported that she was happy and liked it, which is always good feedback. Its definitely a seat unit which will last any child!
My one niggle really is the footrest for two reasons. First of all my son decided to kick it constantly -  the constant thud of his heels on the hard plastic got REALLY annoying! He does it on our Scoot too – but not on any of our other pushchairs. The second and bigger issue is that we really do not like that the ankles and calves of a sleeping child are not supported – there is a gap between the seat unit and the footrest. This has always put us off buying an Xplory, and to be honest would put us off buying the Crusi too.
However the footrest is removable and is also adjustable to ‘grow’ with your child. There is a single button which releases the footrest to make it longer or shorter.
A bumper bar comes with the pushchair seat although it is not shown in our photos.

The Crusi gives the impression of being a huge tall pushchair. The large, rigid Xplory / Crusi seat sits high up on the chassis at a similar height to the upper Xplory seat height position. .
Stokke largely sell their products on the premise that the high seat unit offers a good position for eye contact and communication with your child. But to be completely honest,  most parent facing pushchairs, allow for good bonding between parent and child, and I honestly can not see what difference a few inches of height makes. When a baby is small, their eye sight is very poor, and 99.9% of the time a young baby will sleep through any outing, and an older baby will sleep through a good chunk of most outings too!

However we do appreciate the high seating position with our toddlers, but this brought with it other issues. Although its easy to do the seat harness up without stooping, we found the transfer from a lower level eg floor level or car seat level, up to the higher seat position more difficult. With a lower level pushchair, it is easy to lift a child from a car seat, turn and ‘drop’ them into the pushchair seat. With the Xplory / Crusi seat, we had to pick the child up out of the car seat, turn and straighten up, (not that easy with a heavier child,) before lifting them up into the higher seat unit. Again, with the Xplory, the seat unit can be left down low, and then raised up once the child is in situ.
Also although Stokke suggest this high seating postion is the perfect height for tucking under a table in a cafe, to be honest, we found the seat too high to tuck under the tables of the places we went.

I am not short at 5ft 6 ins tall, but I found it difficult to see around the seat unit. This is not a pushchair for people of shorter stature!
There were also a couple of occasions where I felt a little uncomfortable having such a huge pushchair eg in a waiting room or in nursery, and I would really have liked the option to drop the seat down low, even temporarily to be less obscure. I really think that having some form of height adjustability is something the Crusi really needs.

Seat Recline and Harness:

The Crusi has three parent facing recline settings including upright and lie flat, but just two settings forward facing – upright and semi recline.
The Crusi seat recline is accessed via two long circular white buttons underneath the seat – one on each side. However only one button, on one side needs depressing for the seat to recline – the other hand is needed to move the seat into position. The seat is easy to recline and gives you an option whether you are right or left handed, or whichever way the seat is facing. I did worry about this button being so low down at child height. Our 4 year old daughter kept fiddling with the button and I suspect she could easily have released the seat recline mechanism and moved the seat. It is worth noting at this point, that this recline button gets covered up when the Sibling Seat adaptor is added. Thus neither of the two seats in tandem mode can have the recline altered once they are on the Crusi chassis – both are fixed. This for us is a major flaw of adding the Sibling Seat.

The 5 point harness felt good quality and secure. The harness itself sits high on a child’s torso which I liked. The harness is a little more fiddly than most to shorten / lengthen but its is something you get used to. I do constantly find that I am trying to push the harness pins into the wrong part of the buckle, especially if I am trying to organise my toddler at the same time! Altering the height setting of the Crusi harness did take me sitting down and some time, as the fabric at the rear of the seat needs undoing. But it was straight forward to do once the fabric had been removed.

There is a Stokke newborn cushion included. This pads out the seat to make it suitable for a newborn baby. But the cushion also has padding which can be removed to adjust the depth of the seat for a young child. This is a great idea.

Hood:

The standard hood on the Crusi / Xplory seat is large. There is a hidden mesh section which can be opened up for ventilation on hot days. There is also a zip on sun visor on the front edge of the seat which tucks underneath the rim of the hood if not required (or can be removed).
In this set of photos the seat unit has had part of the Stokke Winter Kit fitted – the hood including the fur. The Winter Kit for the Crusi / Xplory seat includes an extra insulated padded hood, rear textile cover, storm cover, attachable sheepskin rim and a handmuff with sheepskin rim. The Winter Kits come in White, Black, Red, Purple and Navy. However we were surprised that the fabrics are not thicker than they actually are. But we think the fur looks pretty when on the hood!
There are also Summer Kits for sunny, hotter days.
There are photos of the seat unit with the normal textiles on, elsewhere in our Crusi and Xplory photosets.
It is possible to buy new textile sets should you ever wish to change the look of your Crusi – maybe for a new baby.

Basket:

There is a HUGE basket on the Crusi which is accessible from all sides. We love a big basket. However we felt that when the seat unit was parent facing, that because the seat was so high, and so far forwards on the chassis, that the basket felt very exposed. We were highly aware that it would have been easy for someone to reach in and remove a handbag or something out of the basket.
The rear of the basket also has a fabric ‘wall’ with a pull cord along the top rim. We have puzzled over this because the basket is inaccessible in two child mode – the sibling seat footrest fits into cordoned off area, but we can only assume that this ‘wall’ has been added to prevent items in the basket falling out of the rear, whilst not interfering when the Sibling Seat is in place. It does look a little odd, and unfinished though.

Handlebar, Wheels and Handling:

We really enjoyed pushing the Crusi out and about. The Crusi glided along beautifully with minimal push. The foam covered handlebar feels really good to hold – much better than the plastic Xplory handlebar. It was so easy to manoeuvre the Crusi.  The suspension makes a difference to the push compared to the Xplory. The wheels have soft material on them, which makes it quiet to push with no fear of punctures. We walked a long way through a quiet hospital on one outing, and the push was silent and smooth. For us, the handlebar, smooth push and suspension were strengths of the Crusi in single mode.

The front wheels are lockable swivel wheels. All the wheels could be released quickly for a more compact fold.

One annoying issue we had was that one of our wheel guards was rattling against the wheel. We could find no way to remove the wheel guard or to stop it rattling.

Carrycot:

The seat unit can be used from birth with the use of the newborn cushion which comes with the seat unit. There is also a Crusi carrycot available to purchase but at a hefty £269 . I have to say, much as I love to see a baby in a carrycot, but you have to dig deep in your pockets to buy this pushchair alone. Therefore, given the newborn wedge is included, I would probably say is not worth buying the Crusi carrycot.  For the price of the carrycot – £269 – you could buy a whole separate pushchair for the baby stage!!

Car Seats:

The Stokke Crusi can be used as a travel system with the addition of the iZi Go and iZi Sleep by BeSafe. We understand that there will be no adaptors for any other brands because of possible risks with using adaptors with the Crusi in 2 seat mode.  The two iZi car seats have integrated adaptors, so just slot straight onto the Crusi chassis.

Brake:

The brake is clearly identified by being a bright red colour. It is easy to find and depress, and the Crusi feels solid with the brake applied.

Faults and Issues:

As we reported at the start we know of five Crusi pushchairs, four of which had faults within the first 3 days of purchase. Two of these had a chassis which only locked on one side. The handle broke on another. There are reports of wires sticking out of the basket on a couple too. Our Crusi broke where the Sibling Seat adaptor is fitted. We also, as reported, had the more minor issues of the rattling wheel guard, and a seat indicator which showed half red and half green. For a brand new, very expensive, supposedly top end pushchair, these issues are NOT acceptable.

In Conclusion:

Being completely honest, we think the Stokke Crusi is way, way overpriced for what it is. Yes, the chassis is sleek, works well, and pushes great. But its not the smallest, and lightest chassis around, and it did fill our car boot. The seat unit is huge which means that it will comfortably see a child through from birth to three. We would have worried about having our handbag or changing bag so exposed in the basket area when the seat was parent facing.

The Crusi is extremely expensive. Accessories are expensive too and the costs soon add up. For the price and what you get for your money, combined with what appears to be a very poorly made product, I honestly would save your money, and buy something more adjustable and manageable in size, from a manufacturer with better quality control.