This car seat has seen a lot of use. Our oldest son watching football in 2005
Inspired by temperatures that have dropped below 100 (and perhaps some wishful thinking), we spent the weekend cleaning closets, trying on, sorting and handing down winter clothes.
I promise we never travelled like this.
I realized that our infant car seat had been in the closet for several years and a google search told me that it would have an expiration date on it. Sure enough. It expired in 2010.
So what am I supposed to do with it? The internet says to cut the straps and throw it away so it can’t be reused. This seems like an expensive and useful piece of trash. But if it is truly unsafe, perhaps it’s what I need to do? I also feel badly that someone could have been using it for the last 2 years. What have you done with expired car seats?
You can see if Babies R Us or another local store is doing a trade in program. Take a mom that you know will need one or think about buying one for a local charity and you can get a new one for them at a super cheap price.
This just came up for us. I have 2 high quality car seats that were baby gifts to us. They have never been in a crash, treated well, etc. and now I find out that they are expired?? I’d like to know some common sense truth about this. I mean, really expired? Are they better than no carseats at all (thrift stores will stop selling them? and then what for folks who can’t afford them?) How about big families on tight budgets – are they really likely to get rid of (seemingly) perfectly good car seats? Can these be used as extras (occasional use when someone is helping out and doesn’t own car seats?) nI just can’t believe that there isn’t some sort of marketing ploy involved with this as well. Where are the materials science people who can speak accurately/honestly on this topic. nIt’s gotten my ire up b/c of the $$/landfills/people-on-a-budget people. nI offered mine to someone who can’t afford these and she was delighted to get them – and sort of pooh-poohed my caveat about having read that they were past their expiration date.
As for the folks who can’t afford them, you can often get free car seats (and life jackets, and bike helmets) at the fire station or hospital during safety seminars.u00a0
I had never heard about this before! How does a car seat expire, are they perishable? Sounds like a manufacturers’ scam to keep sales high. Seriously though, does anyone have more information about this?
The foam and plastic in the seat degrade with time from the extreme temperatures and UV radiation that car seats are subjected to on a daily basis. u00a0It has less capacity to absorb shock and may even cracku00a0catastrophicallyu00a0when crash level forces are applied to it. u00a0It won’t look any different, so there’s no way you can assess that it’s still good. u00a0Is it better than no car seat? u00a0Sure, because it retains some of its capacity to prevent ejection, which causes the worst injuries. u00a0I’d even say that with all of the car seat errors people make (poor installation, chest straps not done properly, putting kids in winter coats under the straps, etc.) that someone following all of the safety rules in an expired seat is better off than a new seat being used poorly. u00a0The seats are required to meet material strength standards and statistically after six years most of them no longer do. u00a0The cheapest car seat at the store is still required to meet those standards, so you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a replacement. u00a0It really all comes down to a gamble about whether or not you’re in an accident. u00a0If that were to happen to me I want the full shock absorbing capacity of that material to protect my child. u00a0It’s simply not worth the “savings” if it fails when you truly need it. u00a0nI’m a mom whose safety consciousness borders on paranoia with a BS in Materials Science and an MS in Chemical Engineering, so if anyone wants to have a scintillating conversation about polymer degradation I’d be more than happy. u00a0:) u00a0
That last paragraph is hilarious, Brynne!, and thank you so much for the excellent explanation.
Brynne, you may just have convinced me that I need to go out and buy a new car seat!
We used our infant carseat until it literally didn’t work well (it was difficult to get in and out of the the locks.)u00a0 At that point I got rid of it.u00a0 I tend to think they make these rules to make money, and the rules often don’t impact smaller families with only two children.u00a0 nnI found this NYT piece on the subject, and here is an excerpt of what they had to say:nn”It’s not as if you’ll hit the expiration date and the plastic will nbecome weak,” he said. “The plastic is good for at least 10 years. But nregulations and standards are constantly changing.”nFor example, nin both 1999 and 2002, car seats incorporated new methods of buckling inn children and attaching the seat to the car. Although parents can still nuse car seats with older mechanisms, manufacturers can’t sell them.u00a0 Also, Mr. Galambos said, as the car seat ages, “some of the history gets lost, such as whether it was in an accident or not.”n”Replacement parts get harder to find,” he said. “Webbing and such start falling apart.” But, he acknowledged, the seven-year date builds in a pretty hefty buffer zone.u00a0 “We’re not seeing any disintegration until a minimum of 10 years,” he said.u00a0 Inn a survey, other major manufacturers, including Cosco, EvenFlo and nSafety First, all agreed upon similar expiration dates, Mr. Galambos nsaid.u00a0 Despite rumors that float around the playground and the Web,n extreme weather has no impact on the life of a car seat, Mr. Galambos nsaid.u00a0 One recommendation all experts agree on, however, is that if a car seat is involved in an accident, replace it.nnHere is the link:u00a0 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/11/business/11shortcuts.ready.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=db02720bc0a85724&ex=1276142400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
The thing about that few years “cushion” in the recommendation is that in practice many people will use it for a year beyond the date, but probably not four years later. u00a0If they made the expiration date after 10 years, how many 11- or 12-year-old seats would still be in use when their potential to fail has increased dramatically? u00a0Everyone in the US buys stuff they don’t need, everyone. u00a0Car seats for even the largest families are such a drop in the bucket of our standard of living. u00a0Very interesting report on that here, btw:u00a0http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/09/Understanding-Poverty-in-the-United-States-Surprising-Facts-About-Americas-Poor
oh, and while I think it’s all a bit of a scam (at least with the 6 year recommendation), as an attorney I will add that if you are in a car accident, and you are using an expired seat, you will have issues with insurance coverage and may be considered “negligent.”
Yes, especially if I continue to use it after I posted this here! Thanks for the professional advice.u00a0
We just had to throw away all of our stored carseats because they were moldy after the basement damage, so I guess that solved one problem for us!nnI once went to a firehouse carseat check with “hand-me-down” carseats and the fire man freaked out, he acted as though I was letting them run around the backseat with knives, and given what he has probably seen in his time, I took his message of car seat safety to heart.u00a0 nnWe do share car seats with reliable sources, for example when my twins were newborns, I used Red’s infant carseat as my second one, I could be certain that it had never been in an accident.nnSomething else to keep in mind is that the safety check for expensive and inexpensive car seats is the same, so you don’t have to have top of the line to do the job well.u00a0 That may make it more practical to replace them often.nnOh, and as for cutting the straps, I have never heard of it, but I would do it.u00a0 We had people taking things out of our dumpster this weekend which I knew, and told them, were moldy and contaminated, so I would go ahead and make sure that no one is going to salvage that carseat.
I would add that the Virginia firehouse then replaced all four of my car seats for free, as well as the seats of several other large families in our group.u00a0 Arranging a car seat check at your local firehouse might be a great community service!
I have never heard of this…great advice!u00a0
Alice, the fireman’s comment about running the in the backseat with knives is funny, b/c I get that in various degrees for a lot of things (I let my boys play in a field with snakes, etc.) but sometimes it’s hard to distinguish what is just shock and what is a truly safety hazard reaction.
Thanks for all the insight! I am at peace with buying a new car seat, but do I have to buy a new stroller, too? Do new car seats attach to old strollers? I guess I’ll have to take it to the store to find out. I have never used the stroller to carry a car seat very often, but when I do it’s often critical, like in an airport.u00a0
Well, not to concern you, but maybe strollers also have an expiration date — and what about other baby equipment like high chairs? If plastic disintegration is the issue (and only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) how about baby cribs, swings, etc.? nAs for the stroller-carseat combo, we had one that we loved (we callled it the snap-n-go?) It was terrific for leaving the baby in the carseat (especially when sleepy) and being able to snap it into the stroller/carrier and head into (back of) church, grocery store, park…
I’m assuming it’s much less of an issue as strollers, etc. aren’t subjected to anything like the kind of stress/shock of a car accident. u00a0It is hard to imagine a swing collapsing from the weight of a 15 pound baby.u00a0Brynne, our ChemE, is this right?u00a0
A great option for expired carseats . . . donate to http://www.safekids.orgu00a0.u00a0Loads of local branches,u00a0very friendly and on-the-ball staff to help answer your questions.u00a0Basically, they need car seats AND cars to provide training during theiru00a0certification sessions. You’ll be able to help out a great organization AND get a tax write-off.
u00a0