I have a RWD 250 and live in Seattle - lots of rain and I have no issues with control or stability. Last winter we had some snow, and I kept the car garaged, but this year I'm buying an extra set of wheels and outfitting them with Blizzaks. RWD in snow is fine if you know what you're doing, its mostly that the stock tires are rubbish in the snow.

 

And don't forget to test fit the stoller in the trunk...

 

I think maybe we've got a larger infant seat than most; Our 17 pounder seems like she'll fit for quite some time.

Also, most people I have talked to say that there is more room for forward-facing seats than rear-facing. In fact, test fitting a few forward-facers seemed to confirm this.

For me, the problem is where the handle and (headrest-area) hit the backs of the front seats. When you move to the next step and face forward, the (leg rest) area will be lower and cause less issues with the seat backs.

Man, this is hard to explain without diagrams

 

Maybe we are overwhelming caffecapri with info, but I get what you are saying. I've got a 2 yr old in a Britax seat--there's a little bit of kicking of the seat in front of him, but not too bad. I never had a rear facing seat in this car, but my Saturn wasn't too big, and a forward facing seat was undoubtedly a better fit. My 4 1/2 year old in the booster, though, gets a lot of foot prints on the back of my seat (I'm 5'8").

 

Bah, threads are made to be jacked!

For the record, I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm actually trying to validate my assumption that forward-facing seats will offer space advantages for the IS, because if that's not the case, we might have problems. Obviously, there will be kicking issues

Edit: I'm 6'2" and we can just barely squeeze the rear-facing seat in the middle spot. It sounds like you are doing OK with the britax.

 

Thanks for the overwhelming responses...better too much info than the alternative.

I'll try out the baby seats in the next week after I buy one. 2wd makes most sense for us. And ClubLexus has great forum support - an added plus in a car purchase.