The most magnificent thing has happened – it’s almost boarding on a miracle, there is now a highly affordable Extended Rear-facing Car seat on the market!
And it’s at Babies R Us of all places!!

It’s the Joie Stages.

It has a rear-facing limit of 18kg (40lb), and a forward facing limit of 25kg (55lb). 
Basically a very good seat for an affordable prize.
Until now, I’ve been reluctant to write about the Joie, simply because there was a lot of questions regarding the RF limit. You see the first stock of Joie was labled as RF 0+, which is 13kg, the same limit as any infant carrier, and then forward facing until 25kg.
This turned out to be, well..not entierly wrong, but neither right, because the seat itself had been tested and approved for rear-facing to 18kg.

I’ll let Margaret at Rearfacingtoddlers.com explain it better then I can;

The install is the same, because the whole seat is the same, nothing has changed. It always passed RF up to 18kg, but because that was never an official classification, they put 13kg on it, like the First Class Plus for example. Now that ERF is becoming more well known, they are now allowed to sell it as RF up to 18kg.

So there you have it! Be sure to make your way to the nearest Babies R Us and have a try! It doesn’t hurt to tell you that it comes in many different colours as well, for those that like that sort of thing.
Just make sure you ask for the new stock in the white box, clearly labelled as rear facing to 18 kg! :) 

//Q: Was this info helpful to you?