by Joyce Slaton posted in Products & Prizes

If you drive something with oceans of leg room and a big, wide back seat, you never need to worry about whether a car seat will fit. You can buy something according to your taste and waltz right out of the store, secure that your big Beluga of a vehicle will hold it.
But if you have a small car, it's not that easy. A minivan like the Dodge Grand Caravan has about 63 inches of room in its backseat; a compact car like the Honda Fit, just under 50 inches; meanwhile, most infant and convertible car seats are 18 to 23 inches wide. Math says: Not easy! Particularly when you're installing a car seat rear-facing, when the safe, approved angle often requires so much space that drivers or passengers can't fit in front of it.
Choosing a car seat built as compact as your car is key. But again, that's easier said than done. Have you noticed yet that digging out the dimensions of car seats can be strangely difficult" Car seat companies helpfully provide their height/weight limits online or right on the box, but finding out how wide and/or tall these seats are is another thing altogether. Add to that all the installation hitches you can run into with any given car, any given seat, and rear-facing installation angles, and what you have here is a puzzle guaranteed to make you want to pull your hair out.
We can't tell you exactly what to buy. But the following 8 car seats, mostly convertibles, are ones that techs turn to when faced with t...