Help with explaining why seats expire...

AuntieKatie

New member
A few months ago, I noticed that my parents' back up booster seat for my nephew was expired so I took it. We were talking about it this morning how they need to check that when they buy a used car seat (a conversation for another day) and my Dad was insisting that car seat expirations are ridiculous. I tried to explain that the plastic degrades over time and his response was "it can't possibly degrade that much"
Then I tried to tell him that the technology changes in 6 years and he said "yeah I guess, but it's exactly the same seat they make now." (Graco no back booster)
Any other reasons that I can use to convince him? And are there any good websites or flyers about expired seats?
I'm pretty confident that he wouldn't use an expired seat (because I see them and take them haha) but I want to be sure that he understands that it isn't okay in case I'm not around..
 
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SusanMae

Senior Community Member
Tell him that when he uses his expired seat, he's betting his grandchild's LIFE on that "it didn't degrade that much."

There's a crash test of an expired britax on youtube. It's a harnessed seat though...the harness rips out and the child is ejected.

Susan
 

Ladyl

New member
HAs he ever had plastic lawn chairs that were up there is years? I think that is a real example of plastic degrading that people can picture. It gets old, brittle and cracks.

Another reason for the expirations is the changing safety standard. In ten years, things change a lot. I wouldn't say that all seats now are safer than those available ten years ago (some have barely changed and some great seats have gone away, like the Britax laptop) but we have gotten rid of some awful seats like the Trouiva with its notches of death, seats with overhead shields and shield boosters.

ETA: I found the video of the expired Britax.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvCRz7BRAM0"]Car seat expiration - YouTube[/ame]
 

Mysweethoneybee

New member
I really wish I had video or pictures of an expired seat I had in storage. It was stored in a dark shed, but it did get really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter (like the inside of a car). I had put it in there when my now 13 year old outgrew it in probably 2001 it was a 1998 DOM probably. When I was pregnant in 2007 I picked the carseat up from the floor of the shed and a chunk of the plastic in back came off in my hand and the seat fell to the floor breaking off more plastic. It was the kind that was supposed to be reclined for a baby and then move upright in case of a crash. A smart move or something like that. It wasn't a cheap car seat when I bought it. It wouldn't have been even 10 years old at the time I took it out of the shed.
 

rxmommy

New member
My husband was trying to explain this to his mom a few years ago (one of the few carseat points he actually seems to back me up on!!!) and was using explanations of plastics chemistry....LOL. His mom is wonderful but totally over her head, as most science stuff is!!!

He likened it to Tupperware, which probably isn't the greatest analogy since some of that stuff lasts for eons....but it does change over time. It gets brittle. And think about the extremes that a carseat faces. In ND, it's sometimes 40 below, and some people's cars are outside (not my pampered Ody I retain all rights to the garage :love:~work trucks can sit outside!!). And then we hit 90 degrees in the summer. And sometimes it swings 70 degrees in 2 days! LOL. You can't expect something made *mainly* out of plastic to not change. And when the job is as important as saving your child in a crash, it's not worth the risk.
 

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