Jane Powertwin Pram Review

Good Points
Feels really lovely to push along, but only when you are going along a completely flat pavement (or testing it on a flat shop floor prior to parting with your hard-earned cash!).

Bad Points
As soon as you are pushing it along on a pavement with just a bit of a sideways slope/camber, you are constantly battling to stop it from tipping over. Also, you are meant to have the oldest (heaviest) child in the front but they have the least leg room with a tiny area to put their feet, with their legs bent up in a very tucked up position. When that child falls asleep in the pushchair, the likelihood is that their legs will drop down and their feet are then in the path of the front wheel. Also, if you need to take the raincover out with you (ie if it is not raining but might be when you're out) you cannot put it on and leave it folded back, so if you put it in the shopping basket, there's little room in the basket for anything else. There are "windows" in the raincover which you can open, which is a great idea, but they don't stay open because the design has been badly thought out. The shapes of the window openings are not square so when the flap is rolled open, the two parts of the velcro that are supposed to hold the window flaps open fail to line up properly so it's hard to get the flaps to stay up. Also, it's really difficult to pump up the pneumatic tyres - particularly with the pump they provide, because as soon as you try to press the pump onto the valve, the valve disappears inside the tyre. Supporting the valve by pushing against it through the tyre, as suggested by the distributor's Customer Services Dept doesn't work. Their Customer Service is utterly useless and they really have washed their hands of trying to help out with the most important concern of tipping. I know it isn't just me with this problem as I've met other Powertwin owners who've complained of exactly the same issues. The problem, of course, worsens as the children get heavier.

General Comments
I bought this when my youngest was a couple of months old. There is fifteen months between him and his sister - he has now just turned 1 and she is 2. Neither are above average size or weight for their ages and I should still have about a year's use before my little girl is too heavy for the pushchair. The problem is obviously only going to get worse as they both get heavier. On the very short school run that I do, the pavements are, in many places, not completely flat. I'm physically quite strong but despite this, I've had several incidents now whereby on a narrow and sloping pavement on the way to school I've really nearly been unable to stop the pushchair from tipping over completely into the road. I had one incident where a passing, oncoming lorry (which was fortunately going very slowly) had to brake as he could see what was happening. Had he not stopped, the pushchair would have tipped right into his path, had I not just about managed to stop it from going right over. This prompted me to finally call the distributors about this but they were completely disinterested in helping, saying that the pushchairs had been tested and nobody else had complained of the same problem. Also, my mother-in-law can never take both my younger children out for a walk together as I don't think she'd have the strength to stop the pushchair from tipping over. It's really hard work to push on even a slightly sloping pavement or even when you just go over dropped kerbs. The three wheel format obviously increases the instability so I I had considered buying a Jane Twin Two as a replacement but I don't want to spend all that money again to find that the problem still exists, even if it is to a lesser degree.