An understanding of the potentially serious long-term performance degradation effects that coating and/or other fabrication irregularities might have in mass produced proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) is essential to determine manufacturing tolerances of fuel cell components. An experimental setup and methodology is described that employs accelerated stress tests (ASTs) and IR thermography to accurately determine the location and severity of developing failure points in PEMFCs. The method entails a novel hardware that allows the spatial observation of a hydrogen crossover experiment within a fuel cell hardware. The application of the method is demonstrated by comparing the effects of an AST on pristine as well as defect-containing MEAs. The presented method is shown to be valuable for determining the areas within a fuel cell that are most stressed by aging processes. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.