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As parents, we want our kids to be safe in all they do and encounter. We make sure they eat well, don’t talk to strangers, and sit in their car seat. However, we typically don’t think of non-food items as something that has an expiration date. But that is exaclty the case with car seats. Car seats expire after a certain period of time, which means that they are no longer safe to use.
Here’s what you need to know about car seats and their expiration dates.
How long until car seats expire?
The job of the car seat is to keep your child safe in the event of a car accident. Each manufacturer sets the date of expiration for their seats. The timeframe is usually six to ten years.
You’ll find the car seat key data that includes the expiration date on the car seat label. The car seat label is usually found on the underneath of the car seat. It lists the name of the car seat, model number, and serial number. Next to the is the expiration date. Some car seat labels state the manufacturing date as well, but its the expiration date that you want to pay particular attention to. A seat used after this period of time is no longer safe and you’ll want to replace is as soon as possible.
The good news is that if you bought a new seat for your baby, the car seat isn’t likely to expire before your baby outgrows the seat. Where parents run into problems is when they have a second child or inherit a seat from a friend or family member.
Child safety seat: Why seats expire
A car seat doesn’t spoil like expired milk does. It doesn’t suddenly dissolve into the ether, leaving you with nothing. But there are reasons that car seats do expire. This could be due to new safety standards that are set or more importantly, wear and tear that the seat goes through.
Car seats are designed to withstand a lot of impact. There is constant new research that goes into designing the most updated car seats possible. The goal is keeping kids alive in an accident. “Sometimes car seat issues are discovered over time,” explained Varda Epstein from Kars4Kids.org. “New advances correct earlier flaws. It’s no bargain to buy a flawed seat that may endanger a child’s life,” she continued.
Most parents have a hard time imagining the wear and tear aspect of a car seat’s expiration. After all, other than the onslaught of Cheerios found in the crevices of the seat, what exactly happens to the car seat?
As a former car seat technician, the way it was described to me made perfect sense. The car seat is made up of plastic. This plastic takes the stress and strain of the seat belt pulling and yanking the seat as you drive. This causes wear on the plastic. It’s like taking a pen cap and twirling the stem around. Eventually, the plastic turns white and the stem breaks off from the cap. Taking all the torque from driving is putting stress on the plastic like twirling the pen cap does. At some point, the seat could fail due to weakness.
Child car seat guidelines: When can you use a used seat
The thought of having to get a new car seat is frustrating for parents. After all, car seats can cost hundreds of dollars — they aren’t cheap. But just because they expire doesn’t mean that you have to get a new seat in every situation. And there are some car seat guidelines that will have you change the car seat prior to expiration.
“I have three kids. I can’t be buying a new car seat for each of them. I just can’t afford it,” Martha Meyers told Mom.com. She right, many parents can’t afford to buy a new seat for each child. And that is okay. The goal is to know the history of the seat.
If you know that a car seat is not expired, and has not been in an accident, you are okay to reuse the seat for another child. This means that if someone is giving you a seat, you need to be confident that you can trust them when they say that the seat has never been in an accident.
Along the same vein, even if the car seat isn’t expired, if it was in an accident, you may want to think twice about continuing to use it. If anyone was injured in the accident or any glass broke on the vehicle, SafeKids.org recommends replacing the car seat. If your car seat was in an accident, talk to your insurance carrier about having it replaced as part of the claim. Most do and this makes getting a new car seat much more cost-effective.
However, experts strongly advise against buying car seats from an unknown source, such as garage sales or secondhand stores where you do not know the car seat's history.
