In preparation for the little one to arrive, Melissa and I headed over yesterday to Marietta to have our car seat and bases checked out for safety. Upon arriving at the place, we quickly discovered that because of the way that the seat was designed it would not fit our cars. Now understand that I drive a Nissan Pathfinder SUV which is not small and Melissa drives a Honda Accord. But that was not going to work for our car seat because of the clearance needed for the handle. The passenger seat on the Nissan was almost all the way forward and it would not even lock into place in the back seat of the Honda.
After making this discovery Melissa and I returned home to scour the house for the receipt to our car seat/stroller. After getting in touch with my family we were able to get the receipt and exchange the car seat/stroller for one that would fit in our vehicles. In the end we wound up with a nicer car seat for the same money as the other one we got from my family.
Lessons learned from this experience: make sure the car seat fits in your car before you put it on your registry!
O the things that happen when you are going to have a baby!
Brian Brunke 
Congrats on finding a car seat–no small feat! If I could go back and buy a different one, I’d get one that holds larger babies (up to 31 or 32″). Katie outgrew her infant seat at 6 months and we had to go buy a more expensive convertible seat. At that age, we really missed the infant carrier (which made everything from church to restaurants to shopping much easier!).