Commenter Marcie has brought it to my attention that Evenflo does not post on their web site the instructions for removing the goddamn cover of the Triumph 5 (or Triumph V, if you are ancient Roman) toddler car seat. My recent experience has shown me that it is NOT WORTH IT, that you might as well throw the whole car seat away and purchase a new one, preferably made by a company that has realized that children are messy and barfy and gross. But if you MUST remove it, you will need the instructions, and I have it within my power to provide those. I consider it my public duty to do so; thus, this public service announcement.
First of all, I will help you find your lost instruction manual, if there is any hope of doing so. You will be tearing the house apart looking for it, thinking to yourself, “But I ALWAYS save these things! ALWAYS! Am I LOSING MY MIND??” No! It is Evenflo! They have lost THEIR minds, and you merely turned yours over to them for safekeeping! When you received the car seat, the owner’s manual warned you that your child would face SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH if you didn’t put the owner’s manual where Evenflo told you to, and so you obeyed, and now you can’t find it because it is in a place you would never think to look. Go out to your car, assuming that’s where you keep your car seat. Look at the car seat, and you will see in the center of the cover a label that warns you about things–probably something about proper installation. At the bottom of that label is an almost unnoticeable remark about the instruction manual being located behind the something-something. “Something-something” will not be anything that makes sense. Don’t worry! Just listen to the sound of my voice and I will guide you through. That warning is printed on a FLAP of cover. LIFT the flap. The flap has a POCKET on the back of it. The owner’s manual is IN THE POCKET. Intuitive, right? That’s EXACTLY where you’d look for the manual, isn’t it?
So maybe now you have your manual in your hand, and you can find the seat pad removal instructions all the way at the end of it. In that case, we can now part as friends, and good luck to you on your life’s journey. Otherwise, if you are empty-handed and sad because your car seat flap pocket was empty, fear not! Here are the instructions, with my clarifying comments in brackets.
Removing the Seat Pad of the Evenflo Triumph Safety Seat
1. Give up. It’s too hard, and not worth it.
2. Okay, fine. Have it your way.
3. Unfasten all eight (four on each side) seat hooks. [These are the little plastic hooks that keep the cloth cover stretched onto the car seat frame. And thanks, Evenflo, for noting that I will need to remove the seat pad for cleaning! I thought YOU were the ones who hadn’t realized that!]
4. Remove the eight screws on the back of the seat back cover with a Phillips head screwdriver. Be sure to save the screws for when you reinstall the cover. [This is where I actually DID give up. I couldn’t get even the first screw out, it was so tightly in there. And there were EIGHT. And I was already nearly in tears from not being able to find the manual, and now discovering that it was going to be SO HARD to remove the cover. Also: DUH about keeping the screws. Oh, I was going to throw them away!]
5. Remove two plastic retainer clips [these are on the lower back of the car seat after you remove the panel; they look like big flat sideways plastic staples], then push both harness clips [I can’t tell what the hell those are, it just shows a picture of someone pulling something out of the place where the retainer clip was] through the opening in the seat height adjuster [oh my god, are you losing your mind with confusion? just throw the stupid seat away!] to the front side of the seat.
6. Pull the harness clips [between the cover and the car seat frame] through the harness adjuster cover [the slots where you can choose a height for the straps], headfoam [the foamy padding between the cover and the frame] and seat pad [the cover].
7. Remove the seat pad from the seat shell. [Holy crap, is it actually OFF? Does this WORK? Write to me and tell me.]
To Reinstall Cover:
1. Follow instructions in reverse.
2. Give up in tears.
3. Kick car seat down driveway, screaming at it.
4. Dismember car seat corpse in dead of night; stuff furtively into opaque trash bags.
5. Go out and buy new car seat.
EEk. Buy a Britax. People think they are about elitism. I say they are all about the ease of use. :)
I can’t believe they use SCREWS. And to think I was annoyed when my snugride cover would occasionally come off by the feet.
Jen: Also, Britax covers LOOK awesome. I’m always thinking LOOK AT THAT COOL CAR SEAT! WHAT IS IT?? and it is always a Britax. But times two! Arg!
Crap. I am so buying a new car seat. I remember thinking “I should put that manual somewhere where I can find it.” Can I find it? No. It isn’t anywhere.
Maybe I can convince someone that the Britax is actually for the baby? And then have D use it until the baby needs a new seat and then the baby will get a Britax, too? For Christmas or something?
Nice thinking, huh?
I remember the first time I realized that the cloth liners of car seats, swings, bouncy seats, exersaucers, etc. needed periodic washing, especially when peed on or otherwise desecrated. I felt completely bereft and a little frantic. Fortunately, all of the covers to our stuff came off fairly easily and I didn’t have a full blown nervous breakdown. If I had started with an Evenflo carseat, I might have actually done the kicking it down the driveway thing.
What a pain! Did you really go out and buy a new carseat?
Um…we have the Evenflo Titan something or another.
And I’m with you: it’s a Whooping-deluxe to get the cover off!
…so I don’t.
I’ll make my hubby do it.
:)
You have helped all of motherkind through your experience. Evenflo should be ashamed of themselves.
Mimi: Sigh, no. I SHOULD have. But instead what I did was attack it with upholstery cleaner and then Febreze and then let it sit out in the sunny fresh air for half a day, and then give it a second coating of Febreze. And the whole time, I harbored resentment in my heart.
Shannon: I would totally buy that line of reasoning at this point. Actually, I think what I’d do is wave the barf-smelling Evenflo in front of anyone who dared question the purchase of the Britax.
I tried to remove the cloth cover of one of the second-hand exersaucers and ended up breaking the dang thing.
At least I didn’t pay for it.
Ugh! We have a Graco seat, and it didn’t involve screws, but I still think I lost about fifteen pounds struggling to get the cover off after our car barf incident. I think the companies are in cahoots and they actually want you to give up and buy new seats.
remember to buy the new car seat before trashing the first one, since it’s hard to get to the store without the car seat!
This is utterly horrifying.
You have snatched me from the jaws of defeat at the hands of the Evenflo Triumph. And I thank you.
OMG! Thank you SO much for posting this. My husband’s sister runs a daycare and she’s always trying to get rid of car seats that people leave for her. I made the mistake of taking this one to use when I take care of my best friend’s infant twice a week. I hated the idea of putting her in a gross car seat and spent all morning trying to get the cover off. I finally googled the name and got to your site. Naturally the instruction manual wasn’t where it was supposed to be (not that I looked before I read your post). Anyway, your instructions are awesome and I got the darn thing off and it’s in the washing machine as I type. Now lets hope I can get it back on before I have go pick the kid up!
I considered buying our own, but since we’re still trying to get pregnant, I really didn’t want to jinx it. I know. I’m crazy.
Anyway, THANKS SO MUCH!
Madame Pocklock: Glad to be of help!
OMG thank you for posting this. My son just had an accident and I was out there for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to take out the darn cover (I don’t know where the manual went). Now I’m so annoyed that I have to unscrew it and follow the long process that you posted! I think I’ll just cover it with something and have the husband do it. (which means it’ll never happen).
Thank you so much for your post! I’m visiting in a different city with my parents and left the manual at home 4 hours away. I couldn’t figure it out, I thought we didn’t need to unscrew anything. It’s not that hard though. The screws are a bit tough to get out, but it’s easy after that. Thanks again!
Marta- I’m glad it helped! I’m also glad to hear that things get better after the screws come out. I’ve never gotten to that step, because the screws won’t come out. GRRRRRRR.
I just wanted you to know that I stumbled upon your blog and it helped me tremendously! I did not have the manual and I got the seat cover off!!
Meredith & Ben – Yay! I STILL haven’t gotten mine off. The screws! They are in SO TIGHTLY!
looks like it would be easier to cut a path for the belts, and then add some Velcro for the next time.
The seat cover is just for comfort, not really for safely. its probably safer to go about this way then it is to dissemble the back, which is there for safely.
And thanks for the info, its really needed and the ^$ at Evenflo do not keep manuals for older (but still under six years old) models in the product support pages.
Matan, Jerusalem- ….That is GENIUS! Also, it would be so satisfying to cut the cover! Snip SNIP! Take THAT!
After following your instructions (even going so far as removing all eight screws – I had to be contortionist to get two of them, I couldn’t find the clasps to get the straps off. The damn car seat is now sitting in the driveway after being attacked by a high-powered hose. What a sorry state of affairs.
Lori
Oh, Lori! This makes me feel extremely sorry for you, and also very angry with Evenflo all over again, and also very glad that I gave up on the screws when I did. What a stupid, stupid car seat! How on earth did this get past product testing? Doesn’t Evenflo employ any PARENTS?
Yay! Thank you thank you thank you!
Hi Swistle. I just discovered your little “Best of” section in the sidebar and am enjoying some hilarious posts.
This one is very dear to my heart, as we own an Evenflo Triumph and about 6 months ago, I was very pregnant with number 2, crying in the basement, trying to unscrew the back cover, bracing myself on the filthy litter covered basement steps for some leverage on those damned screws, dropping the carseat on my feet, kicking, screaming…
And finally, the cover came off, I flipped the seat triumphantly (no pun intended), and the gigantic styrofoam pad fell right off. And I dropped the seat ON THE FOAM and BROKE THE FOAM IN HALF.
I stuck it right back on the seat, washed the cover, and assembled. I totally forgot about the whole terrible experience… um, is it like super dangerous that we still use the seat?! It’s in our secondary car. Our 2-year old only rides in it like 2-3 times per month. Gulp.
Sabrina- Ha ha! Oh, man, do I ever relate to that frustration! By the way, Evenflo offered to sell me some replacement covers that would (presumably) come off more easily, but I had to turn them down because I CAN’T GET THE OLD COVERS OFF. AT ALL. So it doesn’t matter that there are replacements available. My strategy is that next time I won’t buy Evenflo.
Just to leave a PSA, the newer version of this same seat just unvelcros and slides right off in about 30 seconds. We found out when our ‘older’ carseat got mixed up with a friends. She called me in dismay that she was going to have to take all the screws out… Thanks for the instructions!
Just to leave a PSA, the newer version of this same seat just unvelcros and slides right off in about 30 seconds. We found out when our ‘older’ carseat got mixed up with a friends. She called me in dismay that she was going to have to take all the screws out… Thanks for the instructions!
Just to leave a PSA, the newer version of this same seat just unvelcros and slides right off in about 30 seconds. We found out when our ‘older’ carseat got mixed up with a friends. She called me in dismay that she was going to have to take all the screws out… Thanks for the instructions!
SBE&A- Oh, GOOD. I couldn’t BELIEVE that design slipped through the first time! I wonder how many complaints they got before they realized it needed to be changed?
I’m a husband who was commanded by my wife to do the duty of getting off the cover. With no instruction manual, I wasn’t quite sure how to do it at first; however, after reading this article, I just unscrewed the screws, and had no problems getting it cleaned. Thanks for the info.
THANK YOU so much for posting this. I was ripping my hair out until I Googled “Evenflo Triumph how to remove cover” and got this link first. You are a lifesaver. I would never have thought to start unscrewing the back!
Katie- Ha ha! Me too! I was looking at it, thinking, “Well, obviously I won’t have to UNSCREW anything to get the cover off. I must be doing this wrong. I’ll get the manual. ….I have to UNSCREW THE ENTIRE SEAT????”
Thank you so much for posting this! I don’t know who at Evenflo got the bright idea to make this so freaking difficult. I was honestly surprised when I read you had to take the screws off. As far as I know, they have updated their seats to make removing the cover much easier.
Thanks for the wonderful, belly-gut laugh! The seat was headed for the trash, but after reading this we may give it one more try. We’ll let you know if we prevail.
We got the Evenflo car seat for the same reason you did–the Consumer Reports safety rating thing. We had this car seat since November 2005 (didn’t use it until late 2006, but anyhow) and managed to not ever wash it. Of course it got progressively grimier and grimier, but wasn’t yet barfed on. Then, about a month ago, my son came down with a stomach virus for which I kept him at home for three straight days. Once he’d gone 24 hrs without barfing, I stupidly fed him a big breakfast and then strapped him in the carseat to go out. Within two minutes of driving, the barfing started. He barfed and barfed and barfed and barfed. Since I was only two minutes from home, I simply turned right around as he continued barfing. We live next door to a gas station, so I parked alongside our fence at the edge of the parking lot (instead of going into our garage, where we have only a very dim light) so I could better see the damage. I picked my son up and was immediatetly barfed on all down my shirt and pants. I took him inside to clean him up and change his clothes while I half heartedly swiped at myself with a towel. Meanwhile, my son was screaming about wanting to go outside and I thought maybe the fresh air would do him good. So I put him in our yard while I proceeded to go about removing the car seat, still wearing my barfed on clothes. I assumed that there was velcro, and maybe it was really well hidden and and and surely there is velcro, right? I started panicking about the colossal mess, and how it would be useless to try to just spray it down and wipe b/c barf was EVERYWHERE in every crack and crevice and in the seat belt buckle holder thingy. The more I panicked about my inability to wrestle off the cover, the more I started yanking and twisting on it. Then, some jackass with impeccable timing pulled up next to my car to inform me that I was not allowed to park there. At which I yelled over my shoulder that I’m trying to get vomit out of my car, OKAY? I started to get teary and more panicky and next thing I know, the cover is a huge, barfy knot. I had already discovered the “machine washable” tag on the back of the cover and it had boosted my confidence that if this cover was indeed machine washable, there must be some way to remove it without taking apart the whole seat. At one point, I even went back in the house for scissors to cut the damn thing off, thinking I could sew it back together or something. (I was loosing all rationality at warp speed). Of course, during all this time, my son is wandering laround listlessly, looking like he might collapse any second, and that fueled my haste. I finally called my husband in tears to explain, and he immediately left his office to be a big hero for us. Well, as soon as he saw the KNOTTED UP CAR SEAT COVER, he got mad. He asked me over and over, How could you do this? How could you do this? When he found out I had thought about cutting out the car seat cover with scissors, he really got pissed. So I stood there holding our sick child who was refusing to nap because of all the tension, while my husband wrestled around with the car seat swearing and sweating, as gas station customers peered over at us. He also kept insisting that we had washed the car seat cover before, and we had gotten it off then without this crap, hadn’t we. I kept insisting we hadn’t. Turns out we def. didn’t ever wash it before, like duh. Also, the styrofoam behind the cover started breaking off and coming out in pieces. So finally, to shorten this long winded and poorly constructed story, my husband broke out the screw driver (we didn’t have the manual of course!) and went to town with it until the car seat lay in a gazillion barfy pieces all over our yard. Did I mention there were dozens of people passing by and staring at us during this whole ordeal because we live next door to a busy gas station?!!! (*shudder). Then we had to PICK UP all the gazillion pieces and screws and white styrofoam chunks and crap and wash the metal and plastic in our bathtub and the fabric in the washing machine. Then PUT IT BACK TOGETHER, sticking the styrofoam chuncks together like puzzle pieces, along with figuring out all the other parts at, like, midnight that night. UGH. I couldn’t believe (italics aren’t even enough emphasis for the scale of how I felt) all the work we had to go through just to wash the stupid cover. I just couldn’t believe it. Especially when you’re caring for a sick child. Plus, my husband taking off from work, getting pissed off, me feeling completely inept and panicky and overwhelmed, our son being exposed to all the drama, and then the whole aftermath of husband not apologizing for getting snippy about my actions in a desperate situation. All because of a stupid design problem that any parent, no matter how new they are, could have identified right away before it went to production.
Ok, just now I looked at the manual directions you posted and..it’s possible to take off the cover without dismantling the entire seat?? Whaaa? How did my husband and I not figure that out? He actually took apart the entire seat until it lay in many many separate parts. hmmm. I remember unhooking those plastic hook things and thinking I was almost there with the removal process, and then finding out that duh! There are still a few hundred more mysterious brain teasing steps to go before I can actually remove the cover. ARg.
Oh, and one clarification–that styrofoam (what ever it is, and however it’s spelled!) stuff I mentioned was not the foamy trey stuff directly behind the cover, but a white packaging type material in the seat that definitely did not look like it was capable of lasting more than a couple of years. It was very lightweight and crumbly, but we put it back best we could anyway (All I remember is that it was there to cover some metal innards and make the seat more comfortable). Maybe all car seats have these white packaging-material slabs inside them, but frankly that stuff does not appear to be very safe. I wonder if this seat would hold up being passed down for another kid’s use? (Considering the beating it has to take whenever you want to take off the seat cover!).
Why oh why, Consumer Reports, did you have to recommend this seat (a few years ago)??
Thus ends one of the longest comments ever posted. You are very welcome. :P
(Really, thanks for giving me a much needed rant opportunity!)
Sorry if this posts more than once–I hit post and it looks like nothing happened, so I’m gonna try again.
Sysha- Oh, good, I’m glad my comment section finally stopped being a bitch and let you post this! It is such a great, great tale of woe!
Thanks for posting the instructions. I was kinda surprised that it required taking the back off a little velcro would have been easier. However it is a great seat my now 5 year old was always comfortable and secure. We recently decided to clean it up and get it ready for our 6 mos old. I could see how the straps came out but the back appeared t be in the way. Turns out its four screws and if you use a drill with a philips bit it takes about 3.5 seconds to take the back off. I think that some of these posts a bit over the top. If you are a germ-a-phobe that wants to wash the cover once a week then yeah this seat is probably not for you otherwise not a bad seat…
Anonymous- I think you might have a different version: mine has 8 screws.
Hi,
I just want to thank you so much for this blog of instructions. We had taken both Triumph seats out of our van b/c we have to get a rental. Since they were out, I wanted to wash the cover for my son’s seat since there was various debris and crumbs smashed into the cover and the parts underneath.
We had done this one time prior but it was back in 2005, and I think it was my husband who accomplished this. So, I was like “ok it can’t be that hard. “
1) Took off cover.
2)Started to freak out b/c straps mean back has to come off, and maybe there is more to this.
3)Found blog website, and continue instructions and steps while look at computer from basement floor with phillips head screwdriver and saying a couple prayers.
4)Wash the cover, not noticing there is some sticker or instructions stuck behind the cover and find washed cover covered in paper mache in washing machine.
5)Take paper mache cover and clean it off. It is ok a little linty, but falls off once you brush your hand on it.
6)Start a wash cycle in washer without laundry just to clear out whatever debris I couldn’t see and could potentially screw up the washing machine.
7)Put cover in dryer–it says 10-15 minutes on low which I never do b/c low generally just gets things damp. Say a prayer and walk back upstairs to distract myself.
8)Check on laundry 10-15 minutes later, and find the cover dry and not looking to shabby.
9)Replace cover on seat follow instructions in reverse.
10)Finish putting back on right before husband gets home.
11)Husband comes home and I show him my handywork and he is impressed not realizing I did all the above steps. I make him look a second time and I get hugs and kisses.
Thank you! Thank you! My 3-year old just puked bananas all over the seat. I thought… could it really be this hard? At least there was someone out there who could help! Thank you! (I may buy a new seat yet!)
You are an angel. My wife spent the better part of 3 days trying to figure these seats out. I was beginning to get worried, not about my wife, but about having to spend another $300 buck or so on car seats. We actually put the seats in our “throw away” spot in the garage. This is the place things go right before they go to the junk pile via our trusty garbage man. My wife is a task master and couldn’t let it go. She pulled them back into the house and started working on them again. She found your blog just as she had decided to throw in the towel for the second and final time. Kudos!
The best way to wash this thing is a water hose and the sun, it works wonders and you don’t need a screw driver. LOL!
Thank you SO much for posting these instructions. I have three (count them, THREE) of this car seat (one for each of our cars and one for the nanny’s car) and I cannot find ANY of the manuals!
I just spent 20 futile minutes searching Evenflo’s website, convinced that they would *of course* have the care instructions online. But…not so much.
I also looked at the car seat for quite some time, unable to figure out why they didn’t put velcro at the lower portion to easily lift the cover off, and convinced that unscrewing the back could not possibly be the way to do it.
Looks like I need to go find my Phillips-head…
I consider myself to be quite a resourceful, smarter-than-the-average-bear person. I got most of this cover off and looked at the back and said “SURELY NOT!!”. FIguring that coiuldn’t possibly be the way to remove it, I went to the website. I think the manual isn’t posted because Evenflo knows how stupid they are!!! I have a foster baby and my sister gave me this seat with the disclaimer “I never washed the cover because I couldn’t figure out how to get it off”. Now knowing my sister, it didn’t surprise me because our brains work quite differently and let’s just say she smart about other things, fixing things, not so much. Also knowing my nephew as I do, washing the cover was not an option for me. I must say that had you not postd your description of the retainer clips “like sideways staples” I would not have gottedn it off either. I also must say that since I tackled this car seat cover removal, I was given a Gerry frame carrier. Again, I thought I would retrieve the manual online. Imagine how my heart sank when I read that Gerry was bought out by “GEUSS WHO!?! Needless-to-say, I don’t have that manual either. I have decided Evenflo employs nothing but idiots and I won’t purchase another one of their products. Thank you so much for your help. Your instructions were far more entertaining than Evenflo would have ever made them. Thanks again!!
This entry had me laughing hysterically, but also completely horrified. Any company that could market a SNAFU wating to happen like this version of the seat is probably not going to get any of my money.
Just an FYI, in case anyone is still throwing out their seats –
The First Years has a new carseat out called the True Fit. It is a great seat, I like it better than my Britax. But the best part? The cover unsnaps for cleaning. You don’t even have to rethread the straps or uninstall the seat from the car like you do with Britax. You just unsnap it and wash it.
Too darn funny!!! I am laughing while I am crying. This sucks. My baby just threw up all over the thing and I am going to have to trash it! My husband says “no way we will hose it down and let it air dry”. I cannot believe they get away with selling this product! If only I had known. I looked and looked for disassembly instructions and finally found this blog. Thanks for sharing.
Google just brought me to this blog. Thank god. 2 year old threw up in this seat on Friday. My husband, a design engineer, and myself, a lawyer, could not figure out how to get the ding dang cover off. I will now go out and just buy a new one. Thank you thank you thank you.
I see a pattern where kids throw up in this seat. I think its because they know the parents are so frustrated with the annoying thing. LOL! I was able to get the seat belts off so I can put a new cover on this seat. I plan on posting about this. It took me 2 hours to get the flippin’ screws out of it.
OK so as a dad with a vomit incident in this seat, I’m really glad I found this page for the instructions.
The good news is that ours wasn’t THAT hard to get the cover off:
1. Remove the 8 screws on the back panel (of course you’ll have to take the seat out of the car, and turn the seat completely upside down to do this). Mine weren’t that hard to remove. Lucky me.
2. Remove the back panel.
3. Remove the little clips that hold in the seat belt anchors.
4. Thread the seat belt anchors through their holes and out. Ba-boom, the seat cover is free!
‘Course, I haven’t put it back together again…
I think I love you. No, I definitely love you. My 2YO barfed all over his carseat yesterday, which used to be his sister’s car seat, so who the hell knows where the manual is by now…. The carseat is sitting in the basement now, covered in vomit and those screws were just staring at me. Now I know – I not only can pull those mothers out, but I’m supposed to! Who would have guessed such a ridiculous thing?!? Thank you!!!!!
I got my seat cover off washed it ect, but when a whole cup of milk got spilled and seeped in under the the plastic part of the seat, just washing the seat didin’t cut it.I have doused it with hot soapy water, sprayed it as hard as I could into all the crevices and somewhere in there there is still sour milk and it STINKS. My husband says to burn it, I am so stinking mad, it was hard enough to get the seat cover off, but for the life of me I can’t not figure out how to get the bottom off to get the milk out.
I too stumbled across your blog after I googled “how to remove Evenflow Triumph car seat cover”. Amazing. Except we were wanting to remove it because someone had an accident on the way home (and not an accident with a vehicle — a peeing accident). We quickly realized there was no obvious way to remove the cover. In my annoyance at the seat, I was flipping it from side to side on when the chunk of foam on the right side snapped right in half. Good grief. Between that and pee that seemed to get into every corner of the seat, my husband and I decided to upgrade the seat (it was almost 4 years old anyway). SOOOO ANNOYING though. We’ll check out a britax this time around.
Well I should be lucky I didn’t even have to deal with this till my daughter was 2 1/2. I realized if I took the extra pads off to wash- the seat cover itself wasn’t HORRIBLE. So I filled a bowl with warm water and resolve and attacked it. I had to sit the bowl in the seat and dip the buckles in and use a toothpick to get it out of all the tiny creavices. Finally I sprayed it with Febreeze- I imagine I’ll have to spray it again. Thanks for this post- Jill (Mommy cards, nursery art and more at http://www.sophieandspice.com)
hey! after spending half an hour trying to get this cover off, we just did it in 5 mins using your instructions! thanks so much..now wish us luck with getting it back on!!!
Holy cow!!! I can NOT believe how ridiculously hard that was. My husband is OOT and he’s done this before, but my son had an accident and I could not wait. Thank goodness for you having the instructions (the evenflo website totally sucks and offers no help). It’s unreal how much you have to do to get the cover off. Thankfully, this is the first time I’ve had to do it in over 2 years, but I just bought 2 more for my daughter, UGH! Maybe the newer versions offer a reprieve?!
We have the newer version of the Triumph, thank goodness someone figured to add some velcro to it! I was still looking on the evenflo website for replacement cover before arrival of baby #2. If you go to https://plweb.evenflo.com/replacement_parts.aspx you can search by model # and manufacture date to see all available replacement parts (including the styrofoam inserts that seem to come apart) and a free pdf download of the manual (at least it did for our carseat, but it’s a newer model)
I also came across waterproof car seat covers (else where on the web) that you put on top of the original car seat cover (cute colors and all), but this would obviously only work when the car seat is clean (and we wouldn’t be here if it was, right?). But maybe after one round of struggling to get the cover off it would be worth to get something waterproof to put on top and that comes off easily for cleaning, just a tip :-)
I have seriously wondered who designs some of these baby products at times. Obviously NOT someone who has to clean them!! Good luck to all of you with the cleaning!
Thanks so much for this post. I’ll never buy Evenflo again. I don’t care that they fixed this problem in recent models — if they screwed up so spectacularly on such an obvious function, who knows what other horrors they’re capable of? Between the two of us, my wife and I managed to get the seat off without the manual, aided by vague memories of adjusting the straps at some point in the past. But even then, neither one of us could believe that you actually had to remove eight screws just to get the cover off.
It seems to me that Consumer Reports should include a new statistic in their car seat evaluations: the amount of time it takes to remove and reinstall the cover.
Let me just say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for posting these instructions online! I am watching my 2 1/2 year old twin niece and nephew this weekend for my sister and am thinking I got the raw end of the deal…my niece has this terrible flu-bug that is going around. Needless to say, she ended up puking in the car seat as we were pulling into my subdivision… Of course, when I called my sister to tell her, she indicated that the covers for the car seat were washable (b/c of course, puke was all over the car seat!), and that since I was an engineer, I should be able to figure it out…and that she thought a manual was behind one of the car seats. As luck would have it, no manuals were in the car, so I went to Evenflo’s website to find the manual, but as others have said, they don’t have it online (argh)! Luckily by google-ing, I ended up at your page. I’d have never figured it out otherwise. I cannot believe that give how much care goes into the design of a safe car seat for a child, the manufacturer doesn’t take into account the key user of the item…a small child who will soil their diaper beyond its capacity, consume food and/or drink in their car seat, and get sick in their car seat. It should be intuitively obvious that the seat shouldn’t require a PhD to disassemble for what should be an item that needs regular cleaning!
But, I digress…I truly wanted to thank you for posting these instructions as you’ve saved an Aunt in need this weekend!
HA!!! I love you for posting this!! I just pulled barf covered buckles through the barf covered holes while my barf covered kid is barfing on his dad and I’m just hoping that he doesn’t need to go to the ER because there is no way I’m going to be able to get this piece of sh*t back together.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! After spending half an hour poking around I decided to look on the net. Of course I don’t have the manual and of course Evenflo doesn’t post dick on their website. Thanks again.
Ok, you lost me at step #4! Why does a carseat cover need to be screwed it!!! Seriously!!!
Thanks for posting this. I, like others, haven’t been able to find it anywhere else.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you… you are a life saver!!! It works, my cover is in the washer now! YIPPEE!!! Finally I fixed it and I didn’t need help from my husband.
Thank you so much! I bought this carseat when my daughter was 8 months old and luckily, have not “had” to wash it although it could have used it. However, a blue crayon got left in the seat yesterday and melted. I was able to wipe most of it off and I’m hoping since it was a “washable” crayon, it will wash out of the cover. The screws weren’t too hard to get out with my power screwdriver but I’m afraid I might have stripped a few of them. There is no way I would have gotten them out by hand. I didn’t remove the bottom two screws because I couldn’t get to them so I just removed the six and pulled it down. After that it was easy. It’s in the washer now and I just hope I can get it back together. Again, thank you becuase I couldn’t find my book either.
I am borrowing this carseat from my motherinlaw, whom uses it on part time basis for grandkids. This is the worst seat ever; I can tighten the belt but loosening it is a pain. Guess what; I actually muscled the screws and removed it myself. I almost made hubby do it, but he was standing over me and pride came in. Anyways, I’m cleaning it now and will be returning it promptly! I have a britax marathon and it is so much nicer!
You are a saint for posting these instructions. I spent an hour staring at the seat thinking “it can’t be that hard!” Thanks so much.
Holy whoa…after hours of curse words and not to mention cracking the styrafoam {accidently} I found YOU!!! I never in a million yrs would’ve thought I’d have to unscrew ALL those damn things just for a ride in the washer??? It crossed my mind but didn’t want to unscrew and be screwed myself fo rdoin it for nothing. THANK YOU , not you evenflo, the nice lady who actually instructed
Thank you! I bought our car seat on the second hand market, and for the life of me couldn’t figure out how to remove the darn cover! Mom and I watch my niece every week for my brother, so it’s not used often enough to lay out the money for a new one. When we first got it, I scrubbed it in the seat because I couldn’t get it off, but my sister spilled gas on it and I’m afraid it has to take a ride in the washer. Thanks to your instructions, it’s washing at the moment and it’ll be clean when my sweetie comes back from vacation.
Thank you thank you! I just bought this carseat used and the person I bought it from said the cover just comes off so easily to wash, and showed me how to take off all the easy parts, EXCEPT how to get the buckle off the seat- which required the screws coming off. It actually wasn’t too bad once I followed your instructions- thanks again!
Wow! Your post has been helping moms for TWO YEARS!! That;s great. I needed to wash my cover and found this page, thank you!! And I didn’t take off all 8 screws, once you get the top 4 off it’s flexible enough to bend it back to remove the clips holding the straps in. But thanks again for a very helpful post!
Thank you so much for posting this. I had our seat out (there was a tinkle incident yesterday), and I was batting it around the floor like a gorilla in an old American Tourister luggage commercial. I had no idea how to get the damned thing off. We also have Britax seats, which are a snap in all respects.
After I followed your instructions (for there were none to be found on the Evenflo website), getting the cover off and washed was a snap. Getting it reassembled was easy, too.
Then I had to reinstall it. Something about these LATCH straps makes me feel like a 90-pound weakling, because I can cinch Britax seats with no problem. However, I have to actually SIT in this seat (I weigh north of 230 pounds) and pull until I see the blood vessels in my eyes to get a satisfactorily snug fit.
Anyway, it’s clean and reinstalled, thanks to you. Now if you’ll excuse me, removing the seat yielded six goldfish crackers, an M&M (red), and a french fry – and I’m hungry.
ah! I just pulled out my daughter’s seat to get it ready for the new baby to find it covered in mold and cat hair. gross. I was just going to go for it since I can’t find the instructions.. of course I didn’t put them where they’re supposed to go…
I decided that I should check the internet just in case instructions might be posted somewhere..
Thank you so much for posting this!
I just got a used one from a friend, as I am a new Gramma and just need it occasionally. She couldn’t find the worthless owners manual to give me. I thought I would wash the cover before putting my new grandson in it. HAH! FOUR HOURS I tried to get the stupid #*@)*#@ thing off. I scoured evenflo’s website. I googled everything I could think of. I ended up crying in frustration and throwing it down on the floor, almost hitting my poor dog who was just trying to sit by me and be supportive. I went to bed mad. I woke up this morning and googled and googled. This is the only site I have found with any #$*#@*&@ mention of how to take the #$*@#@*$ thing off, and I still don’t understand. I’ve spent over 7 hours on this total, and now I have to go to church for at least that long, apologizing for the words that I can’t stop thinking. Save yourself, and your soul – buy a new seat and forget taking the cover off!
What am I supposed to do about the belts? They are drenched in vomit and I want to wash them, too (I could remove them from my old car seat). Is this a hopeless cause? Is it possible to take them out or am I screwed?
THANK YOU for posting this! I had NO idea how to break into the damned seat to pull the cover off of the straps – mostly because I hadn’t listened to Evenflo and tucked the directions in the secret pouch, relying instead on my sleep-deprived, fuzzy-at-best brain to remember where I put it. HA! But it was very useful to have these directions, since the Evenflo site just kept telling me about a recall concerning my model, and refused to cough up the manual!
Thank you thank you for posting this! I would have NEVER figured it out! What a stupid stupid design! Thank you again!
Thank you for your posting. As a future grandma, I was given this car seat from a friend of my daughter-in-law. I tried to take the cover off to wash, and became frustrated with how to do this. I see where the instruction manual should have been. I’ll try you directions tonight!!
thanks for the instructions. That was a HUGE PITA! Thankfully i only need to get through this winter and then i can switch her to a booster seat!
THank you for posting the instructions. I have two of these seats, one from 04 and one from 05, and now am using it for my 6months old. LOVE the seat, even if it is a PITA. The 04 had four screws, the 05 had eight. It is much easier than the other seats, and much cheaper than the britax, especially for someone who needs more than one for more than one child.
Thanks again.
I just used the instructions, and they worked, so thank you for posting them. However, I cracked the styrofoam underneath in the process, thereby rendering the whole seat a hazard to my child’s life. Go me!
Hilarious that two years later people are still using your blog to solve this problem. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I was about to give up, but the budget won’t allow me to. :) Much appreciated! The rest of my evening will be spent on this.
Wow – this is hilarious AND spot on. Wish I would’ve relied on ole Google twenty minutes earlier – might have saved a few grey hairs! (Plus I almost broke the strap in the struggle.) My manual was actually in the seat – so funny to find it after reading your post! Thank you!
Thank you so much for these instructions…I had the scissors out ready to cut the darn cover off. :) I agree with you that it is hardly worth it to go through this trouble!! I did get the cover off and it is washing now!!
I WON!! The fight was ugly but I WON!! Ha! Ok, now a I need a drink before I attempt to put it back on!
Thanks to you for helping me get this thing apart for cleaning before I started cutting with scissors in preparation for throwing the whole thing out in the street. Wish I had thought about looking on line for help an hour ago… At least America’s Funniest Home Videos was on as background noise while I struggled with it. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I have just read yopur post and the comments and laughed and cried and almost peed in my pants. I am going to follow the instructions and then give the car seats to my parents after using them tomorrow and buy two Britax’s which can actually be cleaned.
That’s the thing we have two of these from my first son and now I have twins and I thought, let’s not be wasteful and save some money, but this is ridiculous. I have multiple degrees and like challenges. I can always figure out how to get car seat or any covers off, but this was a whole new level of frustration. What engineer designed this??? At least the newer one of the two I have has velcro on the cover and came right off, the other one is this ridiculous event you are describing. I think if I had to do two, I would cry more than laugh right now.
Thank you so much. I am never buying or suggesting an Evenflo again. Both Britax and Graco are better.
I’ve had this carseat since 2006. It has never been washed. My child is unusally clean, but the almost five year run has come to an end after noticing it’s gotten just a tad bit dirty… I too attempted the car seat cover removal.. for hours… after a failed attempt…it was put back with a little dusting..patted it down… and well, it’s still a little dirty… Now with these instructions… I will take it off…. I can’t wait until I get home and try… never would have guessed to unscrew the back… Luckily.. this seat has never been barfed on… just years of crumbs and a little dirt here and there..
Thank you!!!
Thank you so much, now I know why you should just spend the extra money and buy a Britax! I hate this damn car seat!!
Thanks your instructions were a huge help.
Thanks so much. The carseat was given to me and I was struggling to get the cover off. You are a God send. THANKS!!!
As if a mom isn’t ready to cry already because she has a sick, throwing-up kid… but then she really wants to ball her eyes out when she realizes the impossibleness of the task before her — removing a ridiculous car seat cover to wash it. However, you turned my tears to laughter. I even had to call someone and read your instructions, I was laughing so hard. And they worked! Car seat is clean and back together. Evenflo should pay you! Thanks!
THANKS!!!! EvenFlo should be ashamed designing such a terrible product. Again, thanks so much for your post!!!!
bought the seat secondhand, lost my child in the divorce, then unexpectedly got her back for Father’s Day. This thing was covered with dirt in my “man cave”, but after your instructions all is well. It’s not clean, exactly, but enough not to get me in trouble with the judge or child welfare authorities. Thanks!
This is really too funny. We had FOUR (well now THREE) of the blasted things (2 in each car). Our 4.5 year old is in a booster, so we had two in the basement about 6 months ago, when the then-2 year old soaked his with pee. No problem, I will just wash the cover. ahahahahaha (how gross am I that I never washed them before? it’s okay, judge me). I ask husband to take carseat out and take off cover. Go inside with kids. HOURS later, I come outside to see husband and neighbor with assorted power tools and completely disassembled carseat. Like, in pieces. He DID get the cover over, but it appeared that he may have sawed the seat apart to do so. So, in went one of the backup seats.
Anyway, I found this site googling where is my evenflo manual because I am removing that bad boy from my car and putting in the radian 65. Kiddo #3 on the way and the evenflo is just taking up too much backseat space.
Thanks for the laugh, though! I had forgotten the day my husband attacked the evenflo.
Okay, over three years later and you are still getting comments on this entry because it is SO TRUE. And you know what is crazy? It was one of Consumer Reports’ Best Buys when I bought it. Along with um, the crib that has so far been recalled not once, but TWICE. I actually am tossing mine (three of ’em– one for my car, my husband’s, and the nanny’s) and replacing them. Which is such an awesome way to fill the dump and spend $600. Anyway, at least your post made me laugh.
Thank you for this post. I am so happy that my hubby and I were so uptight about what we allowed our kiddo to have in his carseat and grateful that we only had spills that were easy to clean up with a wet wipe. We had one in each of our cars and have just upgraded to the 5-pt. harness booster seats since my son is now 4. We got the Radian XTS (for his car and for airline flights) and the Graco Nautilus (for my car because I needed something light enough for me to move in and out as needed). So, fortunately for me, this is the first and last time I will ever have to wash these seat covers! I was going to put them in storage in case we had another child, but now they are onto Craigslist or Goodwill.
Thank you for your post! I guess I should have read the comments too but I was so so so frustrated and therefore extra determined to make it happen, that I just focused on your instructions and raced back to the seat. “Surely it couldn’t be that bad” I thought. Those were the 8 most impossible screws to remove. I have no clue whether I can get them back on now either. But the main thing I was going to say was there should be one more step to the instructions: don’t leave the car seat out for your 3 kids (aka destructive monsters) to see in the hallway while you bring your car seat cover triumphally down to the washing machine. Here I was relieved by my success after nearly going insane trying to remove the cover (both before and after instructions), only to return upstairs to discover the twins dismantling the car seat and the styrofoam shell in multiple pieces!!!! AAAAGGGGHHHH! I really really didn’t want to be buying a new car seat today!
And to those of you recommending hand washing and sun, I WOULD have done that were it summer and not well below freezing with snow everywhere…
Thank you for this … it’s extremely helpful.
Thanks for the post. Sometimes it just feels good enough to know that someone, somewhere feels you pain.
Thanks for the PSA!!! I Googled into your blog and have defeated the cover on my hand-me-down Triumph! The Evenflo Symphony 65 is SO much easier to remove. I think they were sick of getting nasty letters from frustrated mommies!
THANK YOU! We’re gonna use febreeze and lysol!
I tried to help a friend get her carseats cleaned up before passing them on. This is the worst design ever! Of course no manual. I asked someone else (who has a newer model) if there was some “trick” I was missing. Hers had all the velcro and she couldn’t imagine why I was having so much trouble! Your post is a life saver (or at least and extreme frustration saver!). I’m always a little cautious about removing screws on a lifesaving device, unless instructed to. Thanks for the entertaining directions.
Thanks for the help! Your description of the plastic retainer clips helped… They should have just called them “the big flat sideways plastic staples”.
The worst problem for me wasn’t getting the cover off, it was that the damn thing fell apart in the washer! I ordered new foam inserts because on of them broke when I was taking it apart to wash ($20). And, now I get the cover to put back on and it’s totally ruined. I came across your psa while searching for: “Replacement cover for evenflo triumph car seat.” So, if anyone knows where to get a cheap replacement cover, let me know :(
I know this is an old post, but when I googled how to get the bloomin’ cover off the carseat, this came up. It provided MUCH needed laughter relief. I’m so frustrated I almost threw the carseat in the trash!!!! I will NOT unscrew this thing. My kid will sit in her dirty cover. I surrender!
Same problem here. I inherited two of these seats, and I was wondering why they were so dirty. I kept thinking, “Did these moms not ever take these covers off to wash them?” Well, perhaps not, and now I know why. I hit the seat up with Chlorox wipes, Resolve, and Febreeze. We’ll see how long I can put up with this.
Thanks for the info. My wife worked on this for awhile before handing it over to me- no offense to the ladies, she just couldn’t turn the screws. Heck, I’m a big burly ex-Army guy and I could barely get the screws off. At various points during the operation I almost took your advice and gave up. But I am stubborn. Finally got everything disassembled, washed, reassembled and re-installed. Then I realized “WHEN this gets dirty, I’ll have to go through this again”. DESPAIR! Also, to add injury to insult, after I got done, my wife found the original instruction booklet. Sigh.
I have to say that this has been one of the most entertaining posts I have ever read. Thank you so much for the time you put into writing it! I hate these things!!!
Someone at Evenflo must have read this post because I bought two in late 2007 and they no longer used screws to keep the cover on, just the plastic clips….so I never had to look it up in a manual, I just took it right off. BUT, the belt between the legs on one of my car seats started to fray after a while (with the second kid) and I called the company about it. They had me send in pictures to give to the engineers and they decided that an animal had been chewing on it and refused to replace the carseat. It can assure you animal did NOT chew it. It was from rubbing every time I had to reach and get the thing from under my child’s bum and pull it forward. There is something inside that was sharp, like a plastic edge, that rubbed against the belt. I had to throw away the seat and I got myself a Britax. I was very mad at the customer service! I think it is at least a defect that they should consider in their design for the future!!! But they refused to take any responsibility for it.
I had a similar experience with the cover on the high chair I’d recently purchased at a consignment store (so, no manual at all). I spent FOREVER trying to figure out how to get the cover off, and finally came to the conclusion . . . that the cover doesn’t come off at all. Whose bright idea was THAT? It’s designed to get baby food all over it, and I would like to be able to clean the straps and nooks and crannies on occasion!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! We are in South America and the car seat instructions are in some storage unit in Denver (possibly). My car will no longer smell like vomit and old milk and I have only you to thank. Your comments gave me the strength to persevere through the process. All best from Santiago, Chile.
Swistle….
Thank you soooooo much for those instructions!!! My boyfriends baby mama took the instruction manual when they were still together. So when little man had an accident, my boyfriend was puzzled on how the heck he was supposed to take the cover off without destroying the foam and ripping the fabric. It still wasn’t exactly easy, I definitely got a work out….. but now our little dude has a fresh, new looking carseat. You’re awesome!!