Very minor parking lot accident - Replacement necessary?

emabry

New member
Our Rav4 was backed into in the parking lot of Walmart tonight. There are some scratches and paint on the rear corner of my vehicle and the lady who hit me, her bumper was quite dented in from the corner of my car.

My 3 month old son was strapped into his Chicco Keyfit 30 when we were hit. I was actually out of the vehicle (standing right next to it) and the car was in park. It hardly even woke my son up. The other car could not have been going more that 3-5 MPH when it hit our stationary parked vehicle.

Does the seat and base need to be replaced? I feel like I have hit potholes that have jarred the car more than this did.

If the seat and base do have to be replaced, and insurance covers it, would I be able to allow my inlaws to use the base in their car? He would only be riding in it occasionally... Or is that just stupid to use something that was replaced because its damaged? (I am leaning toward the latter but it's tempting)
 
ADS

beetlemama

New member
I wouldn't. I parked on the streets of Manhattan and I'm sure my car got dinged more times than that without my knowledge. There are a few scrapes and scratches, especially on the bumpers, from that time, but I assumed that none of it was hard enough to affect the carseats.
 

aeormsby

New member
I wouldn't worry either. Both my DH and I were in similar 'accidents' last year and I didn't replace any of our seats.
 

Brigala

CPST Instructor
I always advise parents to replace, because I wasn't there.

But my dad backed into my Suburban full of car seats once and broke his tail light on my bumper and I didn't even think about replacing. I'd be surprised if my Suburban was even shaken and I know it gets bumped around more than that driving up and down the gravel road to get to my dad's house.

So my answers for "what should I do?" and "what would you do?" are two different answers. I've run into too many situations where an accident was described as "minor" and then you find out that people in the cars had seat belt bruises and other signs that the impact was a whole lot more than "normal driving" impacts. This doesn't sound like that situation, but it's just made me hesitant to ever say "Sure, go ahead, the seat is fine" if I wasn't there and didn't observe the accident myself.
 

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