Convertible car seat for Mazda6

[lowrioh]

I am expecting baby number one and setting up my baby registry. I am going to borrow a very good friends infant car seat (her baby will be about 12 months older) and I want to register for a convertible seat.
We have several issues:
1) We drive a Mazda6 wagon as our primary car.
2) We are both very tall (I'm 5 11 and my hubby is 6 6) so we are assuming that our little one won't be able to stay in a infant seat until they are 1 year. Ergo,the seat must fit rear facing in the back seat
3) My DH has to put to driver seat ALL the way back and recline it a little to drive. So the seat will probably have to be behind the passenger seat. Because we are both tall we can't put that seat too far forward.
Any suggestions on where to start? I figure that once I get some idea of what might work I'll go to Buybuybaby and see if I can try out their floor samples.
Thanks
L

Update: I ordered a True Fit to see if it would work and although it was OK with the headrest off it didn't work at all rear facing with the headrest on. We tried out the Marathon which was OK but the seat was pretty upright. We ended up going with the Roundabout in the end. It might not be the most economical choice in the long run but it's cheaper than getting a new car

[Joolsplus2]

Good questions .

Right, the infant seat will last 6-9 months if you are lucky, and then you'll need a rearfacing seat that actually goes to age 2 or longer (forward facing at age 1 is no longer the accepted age, you'll want to go to the full maximum of a rearfacing convertible...see this article that talks about the latest studies that have been done http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9916868). I have a hunch that the seat that may work pretty well for you is the Evenflo Triumph Advance. It's very tall, has a high rearfacing weight limit, but takes up not very much 'front to back' space, so it *should* fit fine behind at least you in the passenger seat (it has dialing knobs on the side that may get crammed into your back seatbacks and be hard to use, is it's only bugaboo). The Britax Marathon is also a pretty good choice, it can be installed rather upright so that it takes up fairly little space. The Britax Roundabout or Diplomat are smaller seats, not my favorite for rearfacing a long time, but should get your kiddo to 33 pounds and will take up very little space.

You have to be careful registering for a convertible, because seats expire after 6 years or so, and if you get it too long before you need it, it may be a year or two old by the time you start using it...bigger seats easily fit kids to age 5ish, so you could find it expiring before it's outgrown. I'm not sure of the best way to deal with that on a registry situation, though... can you register for gift cards, maybe, and tell people that i'll go towards the latest and greatest carseat that comes out?

Oh, I just thought of the Compass/Learning Curve True Fit..it JUST came out, it has a nifty feature where the headrest can be removed when rearfacing up to 22 pounds... that will allow it to be installed a little more reclined for a younger baby, then you can put the headrest on when baby's older and sittin gup better and you can keep it rearfacing to 35 pounds, forward facing to 65 (though in reality, most seats with 65 pound limits still get outgrown by height at 5ish...65 pounds is what an average 9 year old weighs!)

[lowrioh]

Thanks for the great suggestions. I looked at the True Fit and it looks like it is really nice. I'll call around and see what stores might have one in stock here in the DC metro area. From what I see online, it isn't really widely distributed yet so maybe I'll have to wait a couple of weeks.
Thanks again,
L