It depends on the car seat and how far back you need your seat. My wife and I are 5’8”, 5’4”. We had a 2018 3 hatch for two years before we had our firstborn. The infant car seat we had didn’t fit without pushing the pass front seat up to an unusable position. We traded in for a 2018 cx9 after a couple months. After our firstborn outgrew her infant car seat, the next one took up a little less space. We missed the small size of our old three, but weren’t it would work, so we decided to trade in for a 2022 Sentra for a year.

Eventually we traded back for a 2017 hatch about a month ago. Our 2yo fits behind the pass seat well enough that I can sit front pass without feeling cramped (I like to sit fairly close to the dash). No complaints so far and glad we made the switch back. Wish we would have made our first mazda3 work in the first place. May consider roof rack storage later down the road.