I'm right...right?

BrendansMommy · Jun 18, 2010

Ok, so a friend sideswiped a large concrete support pole in a parking garage yesterday. It dented in the sliding door on her van and scraped it up pretty badly. She has two Britax seats in there. She needs a new one on the dented side, correct?

She seemed pretty pissed at me at the suggestion, so I wanted to double check.

Maedze · Jun 18, 2010

It really depends on the how the denting happened. I can personally attest

that you can do a tremendous amount of damage to a door panel without having speed at impact be the cause.

jjordan · Jun 18, 2010

Here it is straight from the horse's mouth...

You're right.

Maedze · Jun 18, 2010

jjordan said:
Here it is straight from the horse's mouth...

You're right.

Again, this is something where discretion is the better part of valor. Yes, damage to the proximal door panel is a requirement for seat replacement, but if the damage happened because the door panel was right against the pillar and she turned right from a stopped position, instead of going straight, the seat is not going to be damaged. The door may have suffered rather horrendously, but replacing the seat over that is likely overkill.

BrendansMommy · Jun 18, 2010

There is no visible damage to the seat, obviously. The pics look pretty bad, but I can't see it in person. I don't really know the circumstances of how it happened, either. Common sense would say it's ok, but when it comes to a kid's life, I like to be conservative. Ultimately, it's her choice, and I think she's going to ignore me anyway.

all together ooky · Jun 18, 2010

I was forced off the road and scraped along a guard rail-totalling my old car (4 panels scraped). I didn't replace my Marathon. It wasn't really an impact, but a lot of damage.

4boysmom · Jun 18, 2010

I am with maedze. The door was not damaged due to being hit, the door *scraped* a pillar essentially.

carseatcoach · Jun 18, 2010

I think I agree that if the damage was from scraping rather than impact, I would not feel the need to replace.

joolsplus3 · Jun 18, 2010

I probably wouldn't replace it, unless the door panel actually intruded into the passenger compartment and impacted the seat, maybe.

Think of it this way, the seat is designed to hold hundreds of pounds of force in a crash... the child and seat suddenly 'weigh' their weight times the speed the car was going in the crash (not exactly correct in physics terms, but close enough for our purposes). When you scrape up the side of the door, what forces are exerted on the seat? Is it really even anything like putting your knee in the seat to tighten the belts? Probably not even that much.

LISmama810 · Jun 18, 2010

I wouldn't replace in that situation, nor would I even consider it. As jools said, there was no additional force on the seat.

keri1292 · Jun 18, 2010

From your description of the "accident", I wouldn't replace. A scrape is different than a side impact which is what would typically be damaging a door. :twocents:

Judi · Jun 18, 2010

Maedze said:
It really depends on the how the denting happened. I can personally attest that you can do a tremendous amount of damage to a door panel without having speed at impact be the cause.

Me too. I have a very large dent in my van from, um, my truck.

jourdysmom · Jun 18, 2010

I vote for not needing replacement.

I *scuffed* a guardrail with my old van.... did $2200 in damage

There was no damage to the interior of the door sheet metal, just scraped the paint all.the.way.down.the.side didn't miss a single panel of the passenger side...

DH was thrilled. NOT! I did not replace my seats, that seems like overkill to me, really. The door was never pushed into the passenger compartment, therefore no chance of impacting the seats on that side KWIM?

Maggie · Jun 18, 2010

I wouldn't replace my seat. Wouldn't even consider it.

Splash · Jun 18, 2010

I wouldn't even entertain the notion, and I'd probably laugh it off if it was suggested

my2kidsSafe · Jun 18, 2010

I wouldn't replace it either. Similar damage could happen on a parked car with regular damage if someone swung the door open into the pillar.

jjordan · Jun 18, 2010

Sorry, should have clarified. I understood the op's question to be regarding the official Britax policy about when to replace seats. According to that, the seat on that side of the car should be replaced.

As always, it is up to the parent to decide if the situation is such that the rules can be disregarded. But it's never a bad idea to let the parent know what the "rules" are, IMO.

4boysmom · Jun 18, 2010

jjordan said:
Sorry, should have clarified. I understood the op's question to be regarding the official Britax policy about when to replace seats. According to that, the seat on that side of the car should be replaced.
\

But those are the "rules" for a "crash", there was no "crash". Mom just drove too close to a pillar.

amy&girls · Jun 18, 2010

I wouldn't replace the seat. In fact, my husband did something similar to this a while back in our van. I have a nice, not so pretty dent with lots of scraps in my passenger side door of my mini-van. People constantly ask "what happened?" and they laugh like I'm joking when I say "Matt (my hubby) drove to close to a pole..." And since then, I've done so much car-seat rearranging in my van, I'd have to replace all 4 seats since I can't remember which seats were where. (it was this time last year, I might have even still have been using the safe-seat)....

I'm right...right?

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