I’ve been hearing lately that children’s carseats expire after 5 years because the plastic breaks down. Is this true? Do some break down more than others? Would storing my car in the garage keep that process slower?
and why arent’ people worried about my Volvo plastic steering wheel deterioting and expiring?
Semi WAG:
I know you’re supposed to replace bicycle helmets after a couple of years (whether you’ve crashed in them or not) because the styrofoam padding breaks down due to UV light and Ozone.
Same idea, maybe.
Gee, I had never heard that. SHIT! My goddaughter’s seat is about to… well, um… it could… she just can’t sit in it anymore!
Seriously though, I guess it makes sense. I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t read anything like that on the box or instructions.
Rude point of information here: Most plastic breaks down when exposed to sunlight and heat, rapidly. As a child, with the long hot summers here, I remember finding plastic milk jugs in the woods, exposed to sunlight that crumbled when I picked them up. I also found discarded beach balls, rubber rafts, plastic sheeting and plastic toys, which, if they were in places with little shade, broke easily apart. The rafts, sheets and balls crumbled into flakes.
Car dashboards used to split with age and fragment. I remember pounding on the padded dash of an old car of mine and discovering that the flexible plastic cracked in a round pattern where my fist hit. Even tail light plastic, after some years, became fragile and broke easily.
When they came out with PVC pipe, I wondered about it but everyone assured me that it was as good as iron or copper but years later, finding left over pieces that had been laying in the weeds for a few months or year, I found that the stuff shattered easily! Using it for plumbing away from the light of the sun allows it to last for ages, but expose it to sunlight and it deteriorates quickly.
Brightly colored kids toys, like those riding cars and carts, if left outside all of the time, eventually cracked and broke but those new slides and things are made of a different plastic that never seems to grow brittle.
Some people I know take their car seats out of their cars daily or park their cars in a garage, but I guess leaving them in the sun all day would cause the plastic to break down with time.
Isn’t it so nice that the makers tell you that? Whatever happened to truth in advertising? I suggest you use armor all on all plastic surfaces exposed to the sun and use it frequently because it seems to work well in delaying the effects of the ultraviolet light.
A little observation: Glasses coated with scratch proofing and UV protection, which costs more, do not retain these properties over 4 to 5 years. As you clean your glasses, you rub the stuff off. They don’t tell you that either.
So parking my car in the garage is probably going to increase the lifespan of my carseats as well as the lifespan of my car. And using the carseats in a car with tinted windows (in Colorado) is going to help when the car sits out.
So when did people start figuring out that these break down? I know that milk bottles, plastic bags, etc break down, but those are supposed to, aren’t they? And I’d heard about the bike helmets, but for me assumed it was because I dropped it regularly.
then what about carseats like the Britax Super Elite that should come out sometime this year that is supposed to go from 20 lbs- 80 lbs? My child would use a seat that size for a lot longer than 5 years.
Re the steering wheel question in the OP, aren’t most of them a metal ring with a plastic coating? So in other words, it’s not like you’ll accidentally pull a chunk out of the circle twenty years down the road.
The ‘biodegradable’ plastic did not come into being until the late 70s - 80s and were not popular and hardly ever used. Remember the soap packets you just dropped into your wash machine because the plastic casing dissolved? They were discontinued. Moisture in outdoor utility rooms made them sticky. Milk jugs are still normal plastic and so are soda bottles. The Milk Monopoly would certainly have passed the increase cost of such biodegradable jugs onto the public. Fishermen use the jugs for trap and net floats, which indicates they do not break down readily.
Beer companies, ignoring years of protests from ecological concerns, still sell you a plastic ring set holding the beer, many fast food places serve you your drink in a plastic coated paper cup, because the wax used in coating the old ones, which were more biodegradable, jumped up tremendously in cost. It used to sell to the public at $10 for 55 pound boxes and now runs something like $30.
Car steering wheels are made from Alien Materials Not Found On This Earth, or something similar. I’ve only come across, in salvage yards, steering wheels of that black stuff that the surface has become pitted and rough after like 60 years! Plus, all have a steel bar in the center, which is why when you stomp your breaks with both feet to avoid hitting the guy who cut in front of you that you do not bend the wheel while pulling on it.
Bakelite, from the 40s, seems to last for ages, I know, having purchased some real old tools and machines that use this remarkable stuff. The surface may wear and loose it’s shine or pit, but it takes a heck of a force to crack it.
I think before you buy a child’s car seat, if you plan on using it for future children, or for 5 years, you might want to contact consumer reports or the maker, or both (because manufacturers do not always tell the truth) to see if the plastic degrades.
I too have a Britax seat, and properly installed, you’d think it could take a direct missile hit. I hope it will last quite a while, since I park in the garage at home.
BTW, didn’t Cosco/Safety First just get hit with a huge penalty for not disclosing hazardous defects to consumers? I think it affected their high chairs and a few other products. *** MAY BE TMI FOR PARENTS***- in that case, a woman was actually videotaping her baby in his high chair when he fell out of it and went headfirst onto her tile floor, apparently by a faulty “tilty” thing.
In any event, I will look at my car seat more closely every few months, which can’t be a bad thing really.