As a mother it is second nature to protect your young. This can be seen in all the efforts made to make sure the right decisions are made concerning items to use or buy for your children. Car seats, wondrous protectors of wee babes and tots, surround a number of questions. Should I invest in a new car seat or is a second hand seat okay? If you’re asking this question, use this as a guide to help make your decision.
Here are five reasons why it would be best if you purchased a new car seat.
Safety
One of the top reasons to buy a car seat new is for safety reasons. When you buy a brand new car seat, you are guaranteed to receive all of the parts in good working order, whereas with a used seat, there may be missing or broken parts. Recalls may also be difficult for you to track on used car seats because you may not have been concerned with recalls from previous years when you were not looking for car seats. When you buy a new car seat it will be much easier to keep an eye out for current recalls, as you will be more tuned in to them.
History of Car Seat
This one’s a biggie. If you buy a car seat new, you know that it has come from the manufacturer and has not been involved in any accidents. However, if you buy a used car seat, most times, you won’t know the history of the seat. By “history”, we mean what the car seat has been through. The used car seat could have been involved in accident, thus compromising the safety of the seat.
Directions
Buying a new car seat ensures that you will get the directions along with your purchase. Buying a used car seat does not guarantee this. Without the directions, it may be difficult to figure out how to operate the seat, what to look for should anything be broken or not working properly, or tips and warnings about the seat.
Warranty
When you get a car seat new, you have a warranty that is up to date. Buying a new car seat clearly lets you know who manufactured the seat and how to contact them should you need to do so. Used car seats often don’t come in their original packaging, thus the warranty may be outdated and the manufacturer’s information may not be readily available.
Cleanliness
Car seats can be hard to clean. Unlike buying second hand clothes or toys that may be simple to wash, it can be difficult to truly clean a car seat. Since you don’t always know where a used car seat came from, it will be hard to tell what has been on the car seat. While you can vacuum, wipe down, and steam clean car seats, germs may still be left behind on used ones. To prevent illness, it is best to purchase a new car seat.
Safe, functional car seats are of greatest importance for babies and toddlers. For this reason, when possible, it is best to purchase car seats new instead of buying ones that are used.
1 Comments
I used to work in the car safety advocacy field, and there is a LOT or orthodoxy on this point. But like most things, reality is not so black and white. Buying a used car seat is supposed to be “dangerous” for several of the reasons you stated above.
But that would only be in the case of a crash. Check the odds of a crash happening. OK, in that crash, let’s assume that there might be a hairline fracture (extremely unlikely, unless the seat had already been in a crash, which would be unlikely since very few car seats have been in a crash and most of those few would not be put on sale). Or a missing piece (if a piece is missing, 99% of the time it would be so noticeable as to render the seat pretty much unusable).
Let us suppose that you buy a used car seat that is operational but has some small deficiency and you get into a crash (stock up on lottery tickets if you really think you have a chance at those odds!), the car seat will still provide much of the needed protection, assuming:
The seat is properly fastened into the car (instructions are all over the Internet, if the obvious is not obvious enough) and the child is well fastened into the seat.
There are thousands of more pressing concerns in child safety than shaming the single mothers and low-income parents into spending some of the money they need to feed their child into buying a new car seat rather than a used one.
At some point, there might have been a child whose safety actually was compromised by a used car seat. Maybe.