What could be wrong.
So I turned up to a private street with electric gates and the full travel system in all it’s glory greets me. Now I have a big executive car but I never knew there would be so many things. A car seat, flat top sleepinNo2 g things, pram base, hi-chair and hoods and waterproof covers for everything. Just fitting into my car I pay the lovely women, take the slightly wiffy system back to the Palmer house and show off all of our goodies! Playing around with the system (Let’s call it playing around because neither of us had a clue about the new fangled system) we changed bases and tops and ultimately was in awe at the great value we got. We noticed that one of the hood brackets in plastic was torn but being a Mamas & Papas we believed that this small, weak part was easily replaceable.
Move forward 9 months and the car seat is easily fixed into the car with the special base (Not isoFIX) and was ready for Baby Palmer to come home.
Setting up the pram top in the house was great as we have a moses basket upstairs and the pram top on it’s stand downstairs (Which we still have now) The problem was the hood! Apparently it’s no longer made that way (Probably due to the weak plastic) so the pram top couldn’t be used outside as we couldn’t protect baby in the sun or rain (More rain due to living in the North West) and we couldn’t use as a proper pram either! So we’ve got this gorgeous travel system that can’t be used for travelling but looks amazing and is great indoors. Did I also mention that the whole system was huge! Couldn’t fit the pram top in the car. 
Looking on ebay for the replacement part it was £49.99. Considering the whole system was less than £100 we thought that extortionate and I looked at different avenues. There was a Mamas and Papas Pliko pramette in a local town and after speaking about a good price it was just what we needed. Lightweight, foldable to go into the boot of the car and suitable for all outward journeys. They’d improved all brackets so there was no weak plastic points and that’s a great thing! So we now have the MPX travel system for not travelling in, and the Pliko system for travelling and not in the home! Typical!
So Lessons to be learnt here:
- Check what you’re buying! If you don’t know what a fully functioning pram system looks like YouTube a tutorial and then practise when you’re with the buyer.
- Highly recommend buying 2nd hand! Both systems were clean, well kept and a fraction of the price even with both. We’ve bought a liberty print blanket and loads from Cath Kidston that to be honest the pram can’t be seen anyway!
- If a seller says “I’m not sure what it’s like we never used it” It’s probably a sham and will break. Who doesn’t ever use something they buy, even to test it.
- Don’t assume that parts are readily available. It seems that the manufacturers want to keep us parents buying more and an indestructible system or a generic fitting means we can keep re-using.
- Think about what you’re doing with your head. I bought the first system with my heart and if I’d been more “Corporate” I’d have spotted the hood defect.
