I was not aware of this fact and it scares me because I think I keep up on all of the things that protect my child. From finding the right socket plugs to the right gate. I was not aware that car seats have a life of 6 years. When we went to purchase Lani’s car seat we looked at a lot of them and pushed on them and pressed on the seat to make sure she would have enough cushion on her bottom, but we did not know to look at the manufacturing date. We purchased and Eddie Bauer for a little over $200 because she could use it what seemed like forever. It goes from 5 lbs all the way up to a booster seat.
Some car seats can sit on the shelf for 6 to 18 months before they are sold. You are losing that time you can use the car seat. So the first thing you need to think about is the car seat being on sale. Check the date, it can be found on the seat itself or in the instruction booklet. If the car seat was made a year ago then the car seat you are intending your child to use until they are in a booster seat or longer if it is one of those like we bought is now only good to you for 5 years. The video that I have attached shows you how a car seat can fail if it is past the expiration date. Because the seats are exposed to extreme heat and extreme cold from being in the cars all of the time it can weaken the plastic over time. Also the harness fray and lose their strength over time. I hope you have found this useful and here is another article for you to read. You would think the internet would be flooded with articles on this subject but sadly it is not. I hope you have a little more luck finding info out on it than I did.