They have an Aussie seat which he now has to forward-face in. It does not thrill me, but I try to console myself with the fact that he doesn't travel with them too often. But, they bought the seat from a good friend of theirs who used it when they were driving their grandchildren. Anyway, it just came to me that I never checked the expiry date. The grandparents, and their friends, didn't know there was an expiry date for car seats, (they aren't car seat freaks like me) so it didn't occur to them to check before they bought it. It was a nice seat in great condition, so if you didn't know you would just think great seat no problem.
So I went out to check and sure enough it was expired!!! Shit!! Only just, luckily, but about 1 month, but shit my heart jumped into my stomach when I saw it. Bad bad Mummy moment! I really should have checked that straight away :(
So I broke the bad news to the grandparents and let them know to cut the straps and dispose of it.
An expired car seat can fail big time in an accident. Even if it looks fine, the plastic will be weakened just from age, sun, heat etc and won't protect you kids in an accident. So very important to check.
You can check your seat's expiry date by looking at the sticker on the side or maybe back of the seat. In Australia, I think they still just have the manufacture date (I am not positive about that though) But Australian car seats generally have a 10 year expiry date, so 10 years from the month and year of manufacture is the expiry date. Don't use the seat after this date. If it's not 10 years the manufacturer will state how long, be sure and check the seat's manual.
Some seats will have the actual expiry date stamped on them too.
There's a detailed explanation of all this here Car seat manufacture/expiry dates explained-NZ Child Restraints
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