Question How can seats fail part of the test, and still pass?

ZephyrBlue

New member
I was looking at the FMVSS Compliance Test results again yesterday and am wondering how they really work- some seats failed portions of the test, but still passed overall. How is that? Is it a 3 out of 5 type thing? Is there an allowable margin of failure?

I'd love to know how the final decision on what can/can't be put on the market is made based on the results of the compliance test.
 
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Pixels

New member
Nope, technically they can't fail any part of the test.

Many, many seats fail due to stickers or manuals. There is absolutely no excuse for that, IMO. The law is pretty clear. It says the manual must say "This is the sentence the manual has to say." How hard is it to copy a sentence? :soapbox:

NHSTA seems to be reluctant to actually enforce its rules. Irks me to no end. Why we have the same seats on the market for years, with the same failures year after year, and they take no action is beyond me. But now I'm getting on another soapbox, so I'll stop.
 

ZephyrBlue

New member
OMG, so the Britax Marathon should not be allowed to be sold, based on the results?! Why have the tests if they're not really going to govern what is allowed to be marketed? Wow.

And if a company can't follow the rules w/regard to stickers and manuals, they shouldn't get to market their seats, either :thumbsdown:
 

carseatcoach

Carseat Crankypants
How did the Marathon fail (I'm too lazy to check now)? I'm guessing you might be referring to the head excursion? 720mm of head excursion is allowed with tether, 813mm without. It passes: it just doesn't shine.
 

ZephyrBlue

New member
Okay, I re-checked and it's the Roundabout that's exactly at the pass/fail number for head excursion and the MA and BV's numbers are up there, but not over the limit. The head injury criteria numbers were :eek: for the FF Boulevard for the 3yo, but it did pass. The Regent is what failed, that's what I was remembering.

Makes me angry that Britax has always said that their seats pass at above gov't standards- and they posted some of the highest head excursion and head injury criterion scores :thumbsdown:

So, if a company has a seat that should fail because of a manual or sticker problem, do they get a chance to rectify the problem, or does NHTSA just assume that they will, or what? :confused:
 

carseatcoach

Carseat Crankypants
In the test that the Regent failed, there was a problem with the test sled, so they didn't fail the Regent.
 

Pixels

New member
Okay, I re-checked and it's the Roundabout that's exactly at the pass/fail number for head excursion and the MA and BV's numbers are up there, but not over the limit. The head injury criteria numbers were :eek: for the FF Boulevard for the 3yo, but it did pass. The Regent is what failed, that's what I was remembering.

Makes me angry that Britax has always said that their seats pass at above gov't standards- and they posted some of the highest head excursion and head injury criterion scores :thumbsdown:

So, if a company has a seat that should fail because of a manual or sticker problem, do they get a chance to rectify the problem, or does NHTSA just assume that they will, or what? :confused:

They do pass gov't standards, and exceed them, for all except the one that was right at the limit. They just don't exceed the limits as much as every other seat on the market.

If a seat fails for manual or sticker problems, what should happen is NHTSA will force a recall and the company will have to fix it, by issuing corrected manuals/stickers. That very rarely actually happens.

Did they re-test and post the results w/the fixed test sled?

Nope.
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
If a seat fails for manual or sticker problems, what should happen is NHTSA will force a recall and the company will have to fix it, by issuing corrected manuals/stickers. That very rarely actually happens.

None of the "fails" on the NHTSA compliance were manual related anyways. The compliance tests were strictly dynamic from what I saw of the summary.

NHTSA has the power to force a recall, TC doesn't. TC can issue consumer information notices without the consent of a manufacturer though. We've had multiple notices and in some cases recalls for labeling issues. I know that NHTSA has been known to allow petitions from manufacturers to not recall a seat when it comes to labeling errors. As straight forward as some things are, it is possible to miss a phone # or an address from time to time. Personally I agree with NHTSA that if an issue isn't a safety issue, it's not worth pushing a recall.

I know we have had seats completely pulled from shelves for labeling errors and actually returned to vendor. And just thinking off the top of my head, the only companies I can think of that haven't had some sort of error either in the wording of the manual or on the stickers of the seat in Canada in the last 3yrs is Chicco and Peg Perego. Graco, Evenflo, Britax, Cosco/Dorel, First Years - they've all had recalls or consumer info notices for sticker issues - or in the case of Britax the issue was silently fixed at point of sale or stock was returned to Britax, with no official notice being done up for registered owners. SK has issues in their manuals, though they've never been recalled. So really, I think the more important thing is that the sticker and manual issues are corrected even if there isn't a recall issued.

(Note that all of these sticker issues have been Canadian related and none of the US seats have been recalled for the same reason... but our rules are just as specific as the US in terms of wording etc. And all of these companies had other seats in Canada already, so you can't attribute it to the change from US to CDN wording... Britax has actually had 2 separate issues with 2 different seats in the last 6 months alone, and there is a clarity problem with a 3rd due to contradiction both within the manual itself and between the stickers and the manual...)
 

Pixels

New member
None of the "fails" on the NHTSA compliance were manual related anyways. The compliance tests were strictly dynamic from what I saw of the summary.

The summary was strictly of the dynamic portion of the testing, but if you look at each individual test report, they did a full work-up on each seat, including manuals and stickers. There were many fails for stickers/manuals, and apparently NHTSA doesn't care enough to do anything about enforcing their own rules.

IMO, if the seat fails for any reason, it should be recalled. Didn't pass the dynamic part of the test? Recall. Didn't include required verbiage in the manual? Recall. The reason that certain information is required to be in the manual/on stickers is because without it, parents are highly likely to misuse the seat, which makes it a safety issue.
 

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