expired car seat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Car seat expirations are basically (but not entirely) scams. There is some truth to the idea that materials degrade over time, but car seats expire very quickly and there no real evidence to back up the claim that old car seats are less safe. Does this mean there is clearly no safety difference between new and old car seats? No. But there is nothing magical about the random cutoff they choose and frankly it seems very conservative to me. I would personally be comfortable using an expired seat.

https://www.mother.ly/parenting/safety/car-seat-safety/do-car-seats-really-expire/

What’s your definition of “quickly”?! Most expire within 5-7 years.

Garfield Telephones have been washing ashore in France for like 30 years now. A shipping container that had them in it fell off a boat (they think) and I guess cracked open. And the tides have been bringing garfield phones to the shores of France ever since. Plastic phones kicking around the ocean are washing up after sitting in corrosive seawater for THIRTY YEARS.

Now, would I want a carseat made out of garfield phones that had been sitting in the ocean for 30 years? No. But I think it tells you something about just how long/how fast plastic actually degrades. And salt water is one of the most corrosive substances on the planet!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-have-garfield-phones-been-washing-ashore-france-30-years-180971835/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Car seat expirations are basically (but not entirely) scams. There is some truth to the idea that materials degrade over time, but car seats expire very quickly and there no real evidence to back up the claim that old car seats are less safe. Does this mean there is clearly no safety difference between new and old car seats? No. But there is nothing magical about the random cutoff they choose and frankly it seems very conservative to me. I would personally be comfortable using an expired seat.

https://www.mother.ly/parenting/safety/car-seat-safety/do-car-seats-really-expire/

What’s your definition of “quickly”?! Most expire within 5-7 years.

conveniently they expire pretty much after one child has used them….. except for the infant bucket seats….. coincidence? I think not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Car seat expirations are basically (but not entirely) scams. There is some truth to the idea that materials degrade over time, but car seats expire very quickly and there no real evidence to back up the claim that old car seats are less safe. Does this mean there is clearly no safety difference between new and old car seats? No. But there is nothing magical about the random cutoff they choose and frankly it seems very conservative to me. I would personally be comfortable using an expired seat.

https://www.mother.ly/parenting/safety/car-seat-safety/do-car-seats-really-expire/

While there is nothing magical about the cutoff date, there is science behind it as well. Most manufacturer's are required to do safety studies of their products or adhere to safety regulations provided by vendors for components that they use. Just like in the pharmaceutical industry, expiration dates have a meaning. It's up to you, the end user, to decide how much to adhere to them. In the pharmaceutical industry, the expiration date of medications is when the medication loses 10% of its efficacy. So you can take expired medication, it just will be below 90% of the efficacy of when it was prescribed for you. You have to use some common sense or consult with your physician about dosage and effect if you are using expired medication.

Likewise, in car seats and other items that use manufactured plastic, styrofoam and nylon/polyester all have measurable strength factors. The strength factors of the materials are tested regularly by the vendor (not the car seat manufacturer, but the vendor they buy those materials from) for tensile strength. They are measured over years with aging being a factor. As the materials age, they test the amount of force that they are resistant to. When a product drops below a certain level, it is no longer deemed safe to use. In the case of car seats, NTSB and other safety organizations rate how much force an object is required to withstand to be safe to market. They use statistics based on annual accidents and injuries and deaths compiled over years to determine what level of force is deemed the safest to protect against to provent the most potential deaths. When the materials are no longer rated to withstand the required level of force resistance, that is when the product will expire. Since different manufacturers use different sources of plastic, styrofoam, nylon, etc. the expiration date will vary. I've seen expiration dates between 5-8 years on child safety products like car seats.

As for use, you can use an expired car seat, but just know that when you do, your child is less safe from high speed and high force accidents. Remember that unlike the front seat passengers, there are no air bags, so the car seat is the primary protection for your child from being injured by impact or thrown out of the seat by force. In a high speed accident, like highway accidents, expired car seats and the plastic and styrofoam components will crush from less force than current models, the straps will break from less force than current models and the risk is greater that your child can be injured or killed in an accident. The expired car seat is going to be fine for lower speed and lower impact accidents, but since no one can predict whether you will be in an accident and at what speeds, you are accepting the risk for your child if you use an expired car seat.

The only regulations that are out there are that you cannot sell or donate expired car seats. You can destroy them (if you are just discarding, there are guidelines for how to make them unusable before disposing) or you can use them for trade-ins and discounts on future purchases and those vendors are required to destroy the seats before discarding them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Car seat expirations are basically (but not entirely) scams. There is some truth to the idea that materials degrade over time, but car seats expire very quickly and there no real evidence to back up the claim that old car seats are less safe. Does this mean there is clearly no safety difference between new and old car seats? No. But there is nothing magical about the random cutoff they choose and frankly it seems very conservative to me. I would personally be comfortable using an expired seat.

https://www.mother.ly/parenting/safety/car-seat-safety/do-car-seats-really-expire/

While there is nothing magical about the cutoff date, there is science behind it as well. Most manufacturer's are required to do safety studies of their products or adhere to safety regulations provided by vendors for components that they use. Just like in the pharmaceutical industry, expiration dates have a meaning. It's up to you, the end user, to decide how much to adhere to them. In the pharmaceutical industry, the expiration date of medications is when the medication loses 10% of its efficacy. So you can take expired medication, it just will be below 90% of the efficacy of when it was prescribed for you. You have to use some common sense or consult with your physician about dosage and effect if you are using expired medication.

Likewise, in car seats and other items that use manufactured plastic, styrofoam and nylon/polyester all have measurable strength factors. The strength factors of the materials are tested regularly by the vendor (not the car seat manufacturer, but the vendor they buy those materials from) for tensile strength. They are measured over years with aging being a factor. As the materials age, they test the amount of force that they are resistant to. When a product drops below a certain level, it is no longer deemed safe to use. In the case of car seats, NTSB and other safety organizations rate how much force an object is required to withstand to be safe to market. They use statistics based on annual accidents and injuries and deaths compiled over years to determine what level of force is deemed the safest to protect against to provent the most potential deaths. When the materials are no longer rated to withstand the required level of force resistance, that is when the product will expire. Since different manufacturers use different sources of plastic, styrofoam, nylon, etc. the expiration date will vary. I've seen expiration dates between 5-8 years on child safety products like car seats.

As for use, you can use an expired car seat, but just know that when you do, your child is less safe from high speed and high force accidents. Remember that unlike the front seat passengers, there are no air bags, so the car seat is the primary protection for your child from being injured by impact or thrown out of the seat by force. In a high speed accident, like highway accidents, expired car seats and the plastic and styrofoam components will crush from less force than current models, the straps will break from less force than current models and the risk is greater that your child can be injured or killed in an accident. The expired car seat is going to be fine for lower speed and lower impact accidents, but since no one can predict whether you will be in an accident and at what speeds, you are accepting the risk for your child if you use an expired car seat.

The only regulations that are out there are that you cannot sell or donate expired car seats. You can destroy them (if you are just discarding, there are guidelines for how to make them unusable before disposing) or you can use them for trade-ins and discounts on future purchases and those vendors are required to destroy the seats before discarding them.

1) You actually don't really know these things with the authority you are saying them with. Because no one does.

2) Many families cannot afford a new car seat and have a perfectly good one maybe one year past its expiration and we do not take the various aspects of this choice in mind. This is a type of trap of poverty. You tell a lower income mom who is struggling to keep her job and food on the table that she needs to prioritize the new car seat so she spends money she doesn't really need to spend on that. So maybe she goes hungry for a week, maybe she feels she should take the baby on the bus because you've told her her carseat is a death trap. Her life becomes a LOT harder in order to gain a very miniscule benefit.

3) You are letting the word 'less' do a lot of terrifying unearned work there. "less force, less force, less force". Less is true, but how MUCH less? If you get a reduction of 1% a year of 'force protection' while starting from an INCREDIBLY strong point (and I think this perhaps is like an overestimation of the degradation) do you think that people should be able to decide if that 1% is worth how much it will cost their family to buy a new seat? People are allowed to make decisions all the time that are slightly more or less safe for any given thing. Driving in a camry is less safe than driving in a Tahoe but no one is guilting poor moms into buying Tahoes. Humans have this belief like, 'if I can't do something to 100% perfection it is useless to do something to 99% perfection' and that is INCREDIBLY STUPID.

A carseat that is 1-3 years expired is likely full strength because as others have said, there is no magic date, and carseat companies are incentivized both from a profit and liability perspective to underestimate the expiration date. Understanding this can help people in less affluent situations make decisions that they can feel confident in (like, paying for groceries this week is more important than replacing a perfectly good carseat, or, buying a new infant seat when it expires 3 months before your infant grows out of it is a silly thing to do).