Useful life of static wicks?

[getonit]

Or is there such a thing?
I am flying a CE-501 and at altitude in cold, frozen type cloud I get a huge amount of static that makes it almost impossible to hear the radios, TX seems to be OK.

My company says they are tested and are OK, but the date printed on the static wicks is 3-4 years old. My common sense reasoning (which was wrong once) would tell me that these items have some type of shelf life and get used up during their lifetime doing their job.

Just looking for some feedback.

 

[EagleRJ]

As long as they are undamaged, static wicks last forever.

Do you have the type with the opposing needle points or the little tuft of bristles? As long as everything is there, your problem shouldn't lie with the static wicks. Check (or have your mechanic check) that all the control surfaces are electrically bonded to the airframe.

In some meterological conditions, there is too much static for any airplane to dissipate. The area is usually small, though.
Certain aircraft types have a reputation for electric personalities, too. Maybe they weren't designed with enough wicks?

 

[Lead Sled]

As long as they are undamaged, static wicks last forever.

That's not entirely true. I've seen static wicks that appeared fine, but when the avionics guys did a static discharge test, they failed miserably. We had had a bunch of static problems with the radios on the Lear. Finally, the avionics guys rolled it on to some metal pads and charged it up using some sort of static electricity generator. (I believe that's what they did, but it's been several years since this happened.) The result? They found some bad wicks and some bonding issues. They repared the bonding straps and replaced a few wicks and the problems went away.

'Sled