Reusing a car seat

[CruCru]

On another thread, someone said that a car seat put in storage can't be safely used again. Is this true?

We have an 18 mo and the 0+ car seat is on top of the wardrobe in the spare room. We are expecting another child in October and were going to use the old car seat.

Obviously, I would give it a good clean etc before shoving a newborn in it.

they have a shelf life of about 5 or 6 years so if it is younger than that then it will be fine to use. I re-used dd's car seat for ds and there are 3 years between them.

Thanks! It was fiendishly expensive so would break my heart to chuck it.

I saw that thread too. There is concern about extreme temp change and the plastics but I think this is more for countries that actually suffer extremes.

Maxi cosi state 5 yrs yet britax state no expiry date as long as still in current refs 44.04.

Also in a temp stable spare room is very different to being temp cycled in the back of a car and left parked in the sun. I'd be much more worried about a seat that had seen several years of use by a toddler and stayed in the car 24/7, than a baby seat.

My second stage seats were far more faded and battered after one toddler than the baby seat was after both of them.