Consumer Reports cautions against buying a used safety car seat if you don’t know the seat’s full history. Even if a car seat looks fine, it may have damage you can’t see. Even a seat used by an older sibling that was never in an accident might not be okay. Car seats actually have an expiration date, roughly six to ten years from the date it was manufactured. It’s printed on every model, sometimes on the side, sometimes on the bottom. Somewhere you’ll find, at the very least, the date of manufacture. Car seats have an expiration date to help consumers avoid ones with components that may have degraded over time. One Consumer Reports Best Buy car seat sells for around $45.00.