Her latest:
"My point is, this is opinion. I do not believe that there is data to support the fact that children died before the car seat companies decided that car seats expire.
Plastics break down, yes, there are plastics in your car, in the seat that the car-seat is attached to, seems that cars should also expire?"
Hello? Thank GOD children haven't died because of old seats failing
(would be my response to her... I mean, it's useless advice because no one's DEAD? WTH?)
The truth is, the expiration dates did come about because many dozens of children DID die when their infant seats were placed in front of frontal airbags, because seats had no warnings on them not to put them there. It's better for seats to expire so that new ones that meet more current standards can fill the market. Old seats don't have airbag warnings, they don't have top tethers, they don't have EPS foam or LATCH...there are lots of safety advances that happen all the time that old seats don't have and kids are not as safe in them. On top of that, they may be more likely to fail due to plastic breakdown...it's just the icing on the cake of 'not as safe' as a new seat.
Many seats coming out now have longer expiration dates (Sunshine Kids 7, Frontier 9, Nautilus 9 as a backless) so maybe they are using stronger plastics...but I've seen some oldish Evenflos that you can just slam a hammer through it's so brittle and weak (and a hammer is nothing compared to the hundreds of pounds of force a child puts on a harness in a crash)... I wouldn't want my child or any child I love to be the one to test the theory that 'plastics don't break down', personally.
(Oh, wait, I don't think you can use any of that to refute her argument, but that's my general feeling, lol).