Recalls

updated 12-08-08

It is very important to pay attention to recall notices and for parents to check if their seats are safe to use or if they need to be repaired or replaced. Recalls can be issued for any failure to meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213 established and enforced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Some recalls may be reasons related to the crashworthiness of the child restraints while others may be for deviations from the standards relating to labeling requirements, flammability of the upholstery or padding. Regardless of the reason for the recalls, all should be corrected.

Register Your Child Restraint
All child passenger safety advocates as well as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), urge all child restraint owners to register their child restraints with the manufacturers. In the event of a safety recall, all manufacturers are required to notify all registered owners by first class mail that their child restraint is included in the recall and many will send notices via email as well. Therefore, it is very important that the manufacturer of your child restraint has your current mailing address, and all of the information necessary to identify your child restraint.

Information on registering child restraints, including information needed to register a child restraint and links to manufacturers' registration websites, is available on the NHTSA Register Your Child Restraint website. A "Child Restraint Registration Form" (.pdf) is also available on the NHTSA website if a manufacturer is not listed or if the owner would like NHTSA to provide the child restraint registration information to the manufacturer.

HSRC Recall List
The UNC Highway Safety Research Center maintains a recall list covering child restraints manufactured after January 1981 (when federal standards first required crash testing). This list is formatted in a relatively compact format without much detail, but does serve to indicate if a particular model has been recalled. Use of the Adobe Acrobat pdf document is recommended for printing this list.

Jump to the PDF HSRC recall list (recommended for printing - opens a new window)

Jump to the HSRC recall list in HTML (to view in your browser - opens a new window)

Other Recall Lists
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) publishes a list of seats that have been recalled since 1990. The NHTSA Recall List is list is available on their website. For additional information, parents can view the NHTSA Child Passenger Safety page or call the NHTSA Auto Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236.

SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A. maintains a recall list covering child car seats manufactured after January 1981. One feature of this list is that it contains voluntary customer safety notification campaigns in addition to official recalls.

The Washington State Safety Restraint Coalition Child Passenger Safety Program produces a recall list that also contains recall information about products manufactured since 1981.