Graco Recalls Another 1.9M Car Seats, Now Largest in History

Officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had urged Graco to include these seats in earlier recalls of 4.2 million seats, which contained a potentially deadly defect with buckles that were difficult or impossible to unlatch. Graco had resisted until today, saying the remaining seats were subjected to "substantially different use conditions."

Collectively, the 6.1 million seats recalled over the latch problem mark the largest recall of children's car seats in history.

"After thorough analysis, we collectively reached a final agreement with NHTSA that is in the best interest of our consumers and underscores our shared commitment to child passenger safety," said Ashley Mowrey, a spokesperson for Newell Rubbermaid, Graco's parent company. A NHTSA spokesperson did not immediately have a comment on Tuesday's resolution.

Earlier, Graco had maintained the difficulty involved in unbuckling the car seats was not mechanical in nature, but a customer "perception" and "frustration" issue. NHTSA disagreed, citing more than 6,100 consumer complaints reviewed by the agency. Some customers resorted to calling 911 or cutting the car-seat straps to free children from the seats.

Graco said Tuesday it knew of no injuries associated with the problem. But the company was a named defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in California, in which two-year-old Leiana Ramirez died in a car fire in 2011. Her mother and bystanders could not unlatch her from her car seat.

One witness, Salvador Martinez, suffered burns on his hands and arms while trying to remove the girl from the seat where she was trapped, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Documents filed in March detail Graco's resistance to the recall. Two-and-a-half years after Ramirez's death, Sean Beckstrom, Graco's vice president of legal affairs, wrote that, "in an emergency situation an adult is far more likely to remove the entire car seat from the vehicle rather than unlatch the car seat's buckle and remove the infant from the car seat."

Graco redesigned the affected car-seat buckles, and customers will receive a replacement buckle kit in the mail. Parents and caregivers can check and see if their car seats are included in the recall by looking at specific models affected at GracoBuckleRecall.com.

The company said it will also provide free buckles to customers who have infant car seats not included in the recall, but prefer the redesigned buckle. In the meantime, Graco says the seats are safe to use until the replacement buckles are installed (see video below).

NHTSA disagrees. In an earlier statement, the agency warned parents to use "an alternative car seat for transporting children until their Graco car seat is fixed."