It was suggested to us (can't remember where from) that a second hand car seat might have been dropped or damaged in some un-noticable way and so would not be as strong as it needed to be. So it wasn't so much about expiration dates as it was about knowing what had happened to that particular seat. I was kindof unconvinced by the idea of unnoticable damage* but then its your kids so you shrug and fork out for a new seat.
That said, in the UK there's plenty of second hand car seats changing hands via ebay etc.
* incidentally I've heard the same thing said about bicycle helmets, which use similar materials (plastic, polystyrene)
This is a thing with motorcycle helmets. If you get in a crash or you drop it with some weight inside, you need to replace it. That's why nobody buys secondhand helmets. Apparently the structure of the foam can be broken and will not work as well in another impact.
Having taken the pads out of my helmet to clean them on occasion and seeing the colour of the water afterwards. The crash worthiness of a used motorcycle helmet would be the least of my concerns.
So, just like if it's banged unloading it at the shop (ie store), or dropped by a member of sales staff?
If the seats are rendered useless/unsafe by unseeable damage then shouldn't they have integral g-force indicators (like you get to indicate proper parcel handling)?
You mean banged around the foam lined cushioned box it lives in? How about an analogy:
My hard drives get banged around in shipping but they are relatively safe from failure in that shipped state. When it is unboxed, banging it is a bit dubious but may work without failure. While it’s running and banged around is a sure fire way to drive failure.
Sure, but if your car seat is being subject to the kind of force where any cracks that are not immediately obvious are a problem you're probably dead and the kid is too.
Sssh, you can't argument with some logic here, you need to think about your kids first and foremost! And if you don't shelve out top dollars for anything/everything for them, then you are of course a bad parent and despicable human being.
It might read as a sarcasm, but I've seen way too many mums (dads much less) that have mindset somewhere along those lines. Something about over-compensating otherwise non-ideal parenting approach to be polite.
One should distinguish between at least two things here, and I'm not totally sure about the terminology. There's a thing called a "booster seat", I think, which doesn't contain any expanded polystyrene and is not likely to be damaged invisibly, in my opinion, nor likely to be particularly dangerous if damaged: it's basically just a convenient replacement for sitting on a few telephone directories or something like that. And yet these things cannot be donated to a charity shop. I think for some places the rule is very simple: if it has a BSI Kite Mark they won't take it.
A booster seat is designed to stop a child slipping under the seat belt that crosses their legs. It's not just raising the child up.
They are very simple though, essentially being polystyrene and some padding for comfort. It would be easy for an inquisitive adult to assess it's state but most people are far too concerned with other things to risk it.
If you think I'm being overly harsh on the average adult then I refer you to the mass of drivers that pay hundreds of pounds for a car seat for their child and then text while driving. Humans are very poor at assessing risk.
In fact, there's always some inherent risk that the item you're buying is damaged in an unnoticeable way, even if it is new. What if your car seat has a manufacturing defect? What if it was dropped during shopping? What if the store attendant dropped it while sticking the shelves? What if it was purchased, opened, and then returned to the store? Even if the store has a policy of not putting open box items back on the shelf, there are people who will go to great lengths to make it look unopened.
All this stuff is possible, I don't think there practical risk to buying a used car seat is all that much higher. Besides, what if you drop it. Are you going to buy a new one, just to be sure it isn't damaged?
This was the same thing we got. Then we learned the seatbelt performs about the same as a forward facing car seat and started to doubt the marketing a little more.
I’m about to sell our infant seat for less than 1/4th what we purchased it for. I feel fine knowing it’s been handled extremely carefully and still have 5 years left to “expire”
Here’s the thing...
I know most people are probably honest like me and their car seat was never in an accident, but I won’t buy a second hand car seat anyway because I’m paranoid I guess.
This is indeed true for the majority of bicycle helmets. They are commonly referred to as "single impact" helmets. Unlike, for example a football or hockey helmet.
My wife crashed her bike once. It was a pretty nasty crash. Low speed, but she got her wheel in a grate and went down right on her head. As she was relatively uninjured (a few stiches) I decided to go an buy the same kind of helmet again. The salesperson said, "Let me see the old helmet. Are you sure it needs to be replaced? Sometimes they are fine." I gave him both halves ;-)
That said, in the UK there's plenty of second hand car seats changing hands via ebay etc.
* incidentally I've heard the same thing said about bicycle helmets, which use similar materials (plastic, polystyrene)