Graco’s Latest Car Seat Recall Affects More Than 25,000 Car Seats
In news that’s going to annoy a lot of parents who will have to go out to their cars and scrape Cheerios off the model numbers of their car seats, Graco just announced its latest car seat recall of more than 25,000 car seats because of a problem with the webbing that holds kids in the seats.
According to Fortune, the recall affects Graco’s My Ride 65 convertible car seats, which are a popular model of convertible car seat that can allow kids to ride rear-facing until 40 pounds, and forward-facing till 65. The problem is that some of the webbing that holds kids in the seats is faulty, and in the event of an accident it might break or tear, and not be able to actually keep a child restrained in the seat.
The problem was reportedly discovered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which found the problem during independent testing. Graco says it’s traced the issue back to a single batch of webbing and is recalling all the seats that could have used that webbing batch.
“In the event of a serious motor vehicle crash, the harness webbing restraining the child may break resulting in a child not being properly restrained,” the agency noted.
The recall will apply to Graco My Ride 65 car seats with model numbers 1871689, 1908152, 1813074, 1872691, 1853478, 1877535, 1813015, and 1794334. That’s apparently over 25,000 car seats, because the My Ride 65 is extremely popular, which makes sense, considering the My Ride 65 is a pretty inexpensive car seat that’s convertible for rear- and forward-facing, and it’s from a well-known brand and available in tons of stores, as well as Amazon.
As part of the recall, Graco is providing replacement harness straps, which will solve the problem with the faulty webbing.
Graco says it will be notifying customers who have affected car seats. Anybody who thinks they have an affected car seat can call 1-800-345-4109 to find out how to get their new straps. The recall reportedly begins on July 17, and Graco says that people waiting on their new straps can continue using the seats in the meantime. That doesn’t seem like something a lot of parents are going to want to do, though. If I knew my car seat straps weren’t up to safety standards, I’d want them fixed immediately. I wouldn’t want to drive around with it until mid-July like that.
Back in 2014 Graco issued an even bigger recall of 3.8 million car seats after a problem with the buckles made it really difficult to get kids out if the buckles had gotten dirty, like by toddlers eating snacks in their car seats.
(Image: Photo / Walmart)
