carseats need dumped after five years

[madwomanacrosstheroad]

Was looking at info about car seats as my youngest dd will change to bigger one soon and came accross information that seats have a fairly limited lifespan. To clarify this i phoned maxi cosi who confirmed the lifespan of a seat is five uears due to deterioration in the plastic of the shell. This obviously has implications for the safety of the child but also potential insurance implications. These seats are marketed for ages 4 to 12, some even from 9 months to 12 years and the descriptions talk of how they adapt to the needs of the growing child.....
It certainly does not advertise that if you buy one for your child at age 4 they need replaced by the time they are 9!!!. I am aware that car seats do not confirm with up to date regulations after a number of years due to new developments but this particular model is still being sold.

I have spoken to customer services at dorel (maxi cosi) and told them how pissed of i am (especially as i need to replace two seats) and i have now emailed them that i feel misled by their carseat advertising.
Just want to make everyone aware of the safety and potential insurance implocations.

That is a really good point and one I hadn't made the link with.

How on earth can they sell seats that are for 4-12 then?!

They argue that that this refers to the age range of children who can use the seat, not to iys lifespan. Will check with kiddy who are the manufacturers of one of my other seats ehat throt official lifespan is. I suspect it varies between manufacturers. I have checked the maxi cosi wesite and could not find any reference in the description that it will need replaced at least once while the child is still of carseat age.

I have britax seats and I'm pretty sure they last a good 10 years.

I think Britax quote 'up to 7 years' wrt their car seats (can't remember, haven't asked in a while).

aren't recently (as in, in the last few years) manufactured seats stamped with an expiry date?

Oh maybe it is 7 years then, there is a website which lists all the brands and the number of years they last, but I can't remember what it's called.

We had a maxi cosi cabrio and in the instruction booklet it says they expire five years after date of purchase or something all those lines.

*along not all.

don't quote me! but I remember thinking that ds needed a new infant seat, as the one we got for dd1 would have been 7 years old as he ws born, so wouldn't last him the time he would be in it, iyswim (and that was a Britax seat)

Found a list of different manufacturers here:
www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/products-reviews-505/buggies-car-seat-reviews-538/387342-infant-carseats-do-they-have-expiry-date.ht

Yes it differs between manufacturers, and britax is tem years. I would be less enraged if i had bought cheapy car seats. Maxi cosi ones are not cheap and along with britax usually get the top safety ratings. I regularly have other peoples children in my car and use erf seats until age 4 so i had researched this carefully before i bought those ones at the time (if i remember correctly they were the only ones at the time that had a slight recline and were the better fit for the car at the time).
I feel taken for a ride - and pissed off

It makes kind of sense in the cabrio and the group 1 ones. You don't expect to use that kind of seat for the SAME child for that length of time. I have been perce tly happy to buy quite a few infant carriers over the years just because the safety aspect had moved on from one child to the next.

BRitax US quote 6 years for all their seats except 2, which are larger/heavier seats manufactured using different materials.

I know the regulations are slightly different (mostly regarding straps and things like isofix/latch), but I can't imagine that there is an enormous amount of difference between a Britax US seat and a Britax UK seat, in terms of quality of materials used.

Odd though, that they do not say the same in the UK.

As much of an issue as this is, does anyone else find it a little amusing that car seats have 'best before' dates?

I hadn't realised that they needed replacing every x years. We're planning on having 4 children with a 4 year gap between #2&3 & bought a nice car seat for DS1 thinking that we could reuse it for DC3. My pregnancy brain won't function enough for me to figure out if that's still ok to do, since we got a Britax. There will be 6 years between DS1 & DC3 so it should just about be ok until DC3 is 4, right?! So confused!
It's like a maths/word problem. If a train is travelling at 25mph...

What annoys me so much is not just that i will not be able to recycle seat from one child to the next but rhat this kind of seat is needed for the same child for much longer that the lifespan of five years. And obviously it is perfectly feasible and no more expensive to design a car seat that will last the years it is needed and maxi cosis similarly priced competitors do.

Jojo - If you've used a car seat for two children, you have really got your monies worth already & with a planned gap of 4y you may as well get a new seat when you need it. You'd get a newer safer seat by the way the advances in tech. run!

Where would you store if for 4y anyway? If it would be in the shed, garage or loft the seat wouldn't be safe due to the extremes of temperature variation & the possibility of mould or rodent activity wrecking the seat.

madwoman - at the risk of getting into a debate about this, the other manufacturers aren't guaranteeing their seats are safe for longer than Maxi Cosi or making better, longer lasting seats they are just declining to specify the life span of their seats - big difference. Plastic still degrades, harnesses still fray & weaken & EPS foam still breaks no matter if it's Maxi Cosi or Britax or whomever making it.

The longer life seats are usually metal framed & exceptionally heavy (e.g. a seat like a clek foonf at 16kg with a magnesium & steel sub-structure or a Britax Frontier at 12kg with a steel reinforcement bar) and even then the two I have mentioned 'only' have a 9y life. Most car seats are plastic/EPS foam with minimal metal structural support if any so have a shorter life span.

I agree completely - its silly. What also annoys me is when you have finished with the carseat they are seem almost impossible to recycle - they just seem to end up in landfill :(

I have no intention of getting ino a silly argument - however other manufacturers do quote the lifespan of their very similar car seats for longer (in the case of Britax it is 10 years).
With similar i mean seats for group 2/3, lightweight with good results in independant crash tests and a hefty price tag. If someone proposes to sell me a car seat that is designed to adjust to my growing child from the ages 4 to 12 then i expect the seat to do exactly that.
When i bought the seats i was looking at the kiddy seat, the concord lift, and a britax. I had wanted the kiddy but it was not locally available, the lift was out of stock and the advantage the maxi-cosi appeared to have was a slight recline.
Had i gone for the Britax it would have an expiry date in around 4 years. I have not yet checked with the other two companies but i will. There seem to be marked differences.
If you look at the maxi cosi website the rodi is clearly marketed as seeing a child through from 15 to 36 kg.

Truth - I'm talking about the 9m-4y type car seat so DS1 & DS2 will have their own ones & DC3 will need DS1's seat approximately 2 years after he finishes with it. For those 2 years it would be stored in our converted loft room which is fully insulated & hopefully rodent-free! (We did see a mouse in the living room about 2 years ago but that was when we had the floorboards up & haven't seen it since!)
Who knows, the way this pregnancy is going we might stick at just the 2 DC so it could all be moot anyway! Or maybe we'll start playing the lottery, win & pay for all our little darlings to be carried everywhere on giant feather pillows!

Isn't it simply that the manufacturers are covering their arses in the highly unlikely event that a 5 yo seat fails and the parents sue them for damages?

I don't think that Britax seats are made from a double-so-superior plastic as the Maxi-Cosi ones.

I have had DD's seat for a good few years, and I don't intend to throw it out any time soon.

A question springs to mind: what about ERF seats? Some if these are supposed to last throughout the carseat years of a child.
Are they made of different plastic?
I am asking because I'm looking into them for my dts, no one ever mentions an expiry date for those. Why?

Yawn... Is it just me or another cunning ploy to make you keep on buying carseats? Or am I just very cynical?

There are huge differences between what the manufacturers recommend in terms of lifespan. As i said britax quotes 10 yrs vs maxi cosi quoting 5 yrs. The issue is that once you exceed the recommended lifespan and something happens there are insurance implications. It does not matter how well the seat was stored or looked after. If you are in an accident in which a child in a over 5 year old maxi cosi seat is injured you have been negligent and should the child be entitled to damages for personal injuries you may well be lia le for that even if the accident was not your fault. Had the hild been in an identical seat that is 4 yrs and 364 days that would not be thecase.
In terms of erf seats except for the latest klippan seat which goes up to 36 kg (forward facing from around 5 yrs) they area all up to either 18 or 25 kg which is upto 4 or 5 yrs. I have used erf seats for the last 13 yrs and have to say they are worth every penny.

Actually the 10y that's been quoted is from New Zealand though they have it for UK Britax seats.

I have checked with Britax re. life span of UK Britax car seats and the response wasn't very reassuring to say the least.

My email query -

Could you please explain when a Britax car seat expires? I read on your
UK website that as long as the car seat meets ECE R 44/03 or above the
car seat is safe to use no matter how old. As ECE R 44/03 was introduced
in February 1997, could a seat that is 12 years old ( I asked this in 2009) be still considered safe when according to the Britax USA site
www.britaxusa.com/customer-service/faq/retired-products seats
do have an expiry date due to component degradation (plastic degrades
over time) amongst other reasons. I am a bit confused that seats expire
in the US but not it the UK. Could you explain as I don't want to use a
car seat beyond it's safe life.

Britax's reply -

Thank you for your email.

As the legal requirements of the European and Federal Standards (USA) are incompatible this means they have different regulations they can comply to. As it states on our website as long as the product has not been involved in an accident and is approved to the current safety standard ECE R 44/03 then it is safe to use. Obviously our newer products are now more advanced with side impact protection so it would be your choice on whether you purchased a newer product.

I hope this is helpful.

Regards

Becky Green
Customer Services

Weasel words IMVHO.

I have posted this before so I'm just going to C&P (posted in April 2011) & this is why I wouldn't use a old car seat bearing in mind this was a well looked after, occasionally used, carefully stored in a cupboard on an internal wall & never been in an accident/dropped car seat.

'While I think your seat should be safe have a look at the plastic shell for stress marks (white or light coloured marks on the plastic) before using it again and check the straps/harness for fraying or damage.

The reason I say this is because I've just checked our spare baby bucket (DD3 is now too tall for it at 18m) and it's DOM is June 2006, it is a cheap seat though - a Team Tex one (aka Nania).

It looked in good condition so I was tempted to freecycle it on the proviso it was only used for a few months but on closer inspection the navy blue plastic was covered in light blue/white stress marks. I've now stripped it down and removed the straps/cover so I can take it to the tip and no-one would be able to reuse it. It just doesn't look safe and I'm glad we never had an accident with one of the DDs in it.

It's not even 5 years old yet and is our spare seat so was used at most 25 for 3 babies (DD3 used it for the longest - trips in ambulances being the most common reason for use!).

It was stored indoors in a cupboard and was never kept in a car for a long period (perhaps a few hours) so was not exposed to the extremes of heat/cold a seat might if it was kept for years in a car. I don't know why it has stress marks on it.'

ok, I am going to stick my neck out and say that if my child is in an accident, the last thing on my mind will be whether the insurance will pay out.

Aside from that, I have accident insurance for both kids.

I think this is a legal brew concocted to a) protect the companies from litigation, and b) make us buy car seats every five years.

I have found no evidence that the car seats are no longer safe after five years, only that the insurance may not be validated.

Obviously if a child is injured whether or not the insurance will pay out is not your immediate concern. However is the child as a result has long term or lifelong care needs it will be your concern. I am not talking about compensation for minor injuries here. If an insurance company can find a way to not be liable they will. If it is your child i suppose you can decide to take the risk. But what if it is someone elses child? What if the parent has to give up work to care for the child for years or decades. What about adaptations to the house? No amount of money will ever compensate but it helps.
I just got interesting emails from maxi cosi who have become very vague indeed about lifespans, now state it does not apply to the high backed boosters and have passed the issue on to their training teams! I ll post the entire email rxchange here later when i have access to a proper computer noy just mu phone.

I see what you mean. This is why we have accident insurance for the kids. It pays out if a child is injured in an accident or illness.

I do think however, that parents are being made to feel guilty about not buying a new seat every 5 years to boost the profits of the manufacturers.