Help find me a rear facing car seat

[susiebee46]

I'm looking for a car seat for a group 1 car seat and am completely boggled by all the choices.

I'd really like a rear facing seat ideally with option to go forward facing.
Our budget is £200.

I have a small car (Ford Escort) and I cant seem to find one that will fit it that isn't hugely expensive. The iZi plus looks good but is £320. A lot of the MaxiCosi seats also look good but don't fit in our car.

Help please wise mumsnetters

I would go with a britax first class I think if I was you. you can get them for around £100(assuming it will be ok in your car) It's quite big but not huge. Also britax have a fit finder on the website so you can put your car info in and it will give you the ones that will fit.

The first class isn't rear facing so if you want rear facing (which I completely agree with) you'd need to look at other options. Have you had a look on the "in car safety centre's" website? They have a good range of rear facing. The joie stages seems to be recommended on a lot of forums, personally I haven't considered it as can't see any independent reviews on it. The previous version was tested by which and found to be unsafe and was then withdrawn. Which say the new model is very different but haven't tested it yet. I don't always hold much weight by what they say though as one if the britax rear facing us a don't buy but when you read the report it was outstanding in crash tests but was a don't buy because harness wasn't good on a newborn! So for any people like you or I looking for a car seat after infant carrier that's not relevant.
We gave the cybex sirona which I love and are currently looking for another rear facing for dh's car. The sirona is expensive although have to say we were very lucky and got a real bargain on ours and bought for £216.

The britax first class plus is rear facing

The Britax first class plus isn't extended rear facing. It's only rear facing to 13kg then you have to turn it and have it forward facing until 18kg.

We've got the Britax Max fix, it's only rear facing but we got a deal on it and got it for £180 rather than £275. It was a display model that they'd only had for 4 weeks and we're getting rid of to make way for more forward facing seats

As above its only read facing to 13kg which is Basically a large infant carrier not a group 1 car seat.