Helmet damage

[heyjoe]

Replace it. Sometimes damage is not visible to the naked eye and the internal structure is not visible either. If it is 10 year old then just replace it automatically. Foam and padding compresses and loses it impacting protections properties over a ten year period. Your head is precious. You only get issued with one at birth.

[FROSTY:Me]

If In doubt talk to Me,Shaun,skelstar or Mac dknife--we have all had experience what happens when head hits deck hard--and we all had quality lids

[Henk]

mnz have an age limit on lids--must be for a reason

The MNZ age limit is ten years. The Go Cart guys have a limit of five years. I beleive it has something to do with the polystyrene liner ageing and not being as good at soaking up the impact when you head butt the ground leading to a higher likelyhood of Brain shakes. I usually replace mine when it starts to feel sloppy. They all end up fitting like a bucket eventually.

[nevets]

mnz have an age limit on lids--must be for a reason

IIRC the blurb that came with my Shoei XR1000 suggested replacement after 5yrs

[FruitLooPs]

My shoei XR1000 went down at the hairpin at Ruapuna ~20k/hr lowside with me. I didn't impact with my head so much as lay it down.

I can see the inside of the padding in the particular spot by pulling the lining out, have done so and its identical to the uncrashed other side foam hasn't compressed or cracked/broken. I hadn't thought twice about wearing it, but you guys have me wondering.

I'm just *really* skeptical that its shot in my particular case. Drats

[Jantar]

... I didn't impact with my head so much as lay it down....

I'm just *really* skeptical that its shot in my particular case. Drats

If it didn't impact, then the inner liner should still be fine. If it slid, then the integrety of the shell may be in doubt, but if the helmet didn't contact the ground with any force, then its probably still OK.

I took my Nolan N102 into the insurance today, and they are paying up without any problems. A new one is already ordered.

[2 wheel madness]

I carried out some tests on a helmet supplied to company i work for by an insurance co. a few years ago to establish if we could detect defects / damage using x-ray.
The helmet supplied had minor cracking evident visually. X-ray didnt show much as expected, i wont go into the many reasons. We also tested it using an ultrasonic technique and while we did detect the cracks that were there we concluded that they were that hard to locate and identify that even if we were confident we could inspect helmets for cracking (which we were not) our bill would be more than a new helmet anyway.
So the posibility of inspecting helmets has been looked into by the insurance companies (suprise suprise) who will happily pay out.