Elfensafety?

[Ramsman]

Younger daughter and partner have managed to break the locking buttons on the carrying handle of their MaxiCosi Pebble car seat.

Dismantling reveals the mechanism to be the moulded button itself and a coil spring that holds it in one of three possible positions. The part that bears against the spring has broken off on both buttons.

Replacing the buttons is a simple task and they can only fit one way round as they are handed.

MaxiCosi refuses to provide me with the parts as the repair is listed in their manual as a safety-related issue. The rationale is that if it is done incorrectly the seat (and contents) could be dropped. As it is out of warranty (bought second hand) the seat has to be returned to them at a charge of GBP 39.99, including carriage. It might be possible to get e.g. Halfords to do it, but I don't suppose that would be cheap either.

Bugger.

[Toby]

More likely to be a condition of their insurance, as the consequence of dropping the product, or the product failing an a RTC could potentially lead to the death of a child...

[Dave Liquorice]

It certainly opens up holes for the lawyers to crawl through. TBH I'd be a bit leary of buying a second hand car seat unless I knew it's history very well. Like never been involved in a crash. The forces exerted by a child on the seat, it's fixings and straps can be very high, you don't know if something has been damaged or weakened.

[Mentalguy2k8]

Indeed, same principle as a crash helmet.

[harryagain]

Just a lame excuse to generate work/force you to buy new/they don't have any parts. Tell them you have a degree in mechanical engineering. (You will get another excuse)

Scum bag trick. ANY repair work is potetially dangerous. You can buy parts to fix your car can't you?

Just Never Ever buy stuff from them again. Pas the word around so others don't either.

[bert]

In message , Mentalguy2k8 writes

And a seat belt

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Can you pasa bolt through the button to produce a protruberance in teh right place? Or make new buttons by carving bits of a hard wood?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Fuck's sake; I agree with Harry. This is getting too damned often.

[soup]

Again? He never bought from them in the first place; it is a second hand seat.

[Peter Crosland]

The lesson is to never, ever, buy a secondhand safety related item like this unless you know the seller well and quite sure it has not been subjected to an accident.

[Roger Mills]

Sounds like an excuse for buying a 3-D printer!

[dennis]

It maybe that they are designed to break as an indicator that the seat has suffered a shock. If that is the case then they shouldn't supply spares to anyone who won't write off a damaged seat. If that isn't the case then they should fix it under warranty/sale of goods (if the original purchaser takes it back).

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Maybe. But we were told that the current users of the seat had broken the locking buttons. They should know how it happened, and whether they just need the /handle/-locking buttons fixed, or the whole seat replaced.

[Toby]

If you were running a business, and part of your liability insurance conditions were you could only supply certain parts to trained third party repair agents, what you do in this circumstance?

[Ramsman]

No, they're not just simple buttons. More complicated than that or I'd have been able to fix them myself. There's no material behind where the protruberance needs to be. As for carving new parts, it would be easier to pay the 39.99! (BTW, Thunderbird's spell checker doesn't like the word 'protruberance')

[Ramsman]

The locking mechanisms in question merely hold the carrying handle in any of three positions and would not be subjected to other loads. MaxiCosi's CYA policy appears to be in case the handle fails while the seat is being carried by hand with a baby in it rather than when it's in position in a vehicle.

[Bob Eager]

Does it like 'protuberance'?

[Tim Streater]

Thass because there's no such word. It's spelt:

protuberance

which is what I though and confirmed by going "right mouse -> Look up in dictionary" on the word.

[Ramsman]

Yes, but I've always(!) spelt it with the extra 'r'. The SOED has both spellings. The entry is:

protruberance /pr??tru:b(?)r(?)ns/ noun. E19. [ORIGIN Alt., prob. infl. by protrude.] A protuberance.

which leads to:

protuberance /pr??tju:b(?)r(?)ns/ noun. M17. [ORIGIN from protuberant: see -ance.]

1 That which is protuberant; a rounded projection or swelling. M17. solar protuberance = prominence 4. 2 The quality or condition of being protuberant. L17. Also protuberancy noun M17.

[Ramsman]

See my previous post. If it's good enough for the SOED, it's good enough for me.