In this age of Internet shopping, I'm not the only one here who has my very important Web purchases shipped to the office instead of my house. Fear of having packages stolen from my front porch wins out over the possibility of the Edmunds' receptionist making a crabby face at my personal junk. (Although honestly, she's way too cheerful and nice to chastise annoying staffers).
So when UPS delivered my new 5'x8' Pottery Barn rug to Santa Monica, I needed a car that could easily carry it 33 miles south to my Long Beach home. And our 2008 Pontiac G8, with its double-wide pass-thru connecting the trunk to the backseat, stepped up with enthusiasm.
Now about that armoire I ordered yesterday...
Kelly Toepke, News Editor @ 22,650 miles
cruiserhead1 says:
12:00 PM, 06/ 2/09
do the rear seats also fold down or just the center?
fuhteng says:
12:51 PM, 06/ 2/09
Just the center sadly.
2002blksle says:
01:10 PM, 06/ 2/09
you should have provided a nice refreshing beverage for the pottery barn rug to enjoy.
m_thrizzle says:
03:38 PM, 06/ 2/09
A lesser person would have assumed only a truck or SUV would be fit for the job :)
dang8 says:
05:01 PM, 06/ 2/09
+1 for the G8. You gotta' love the large trunk and extra wide pass thru.
stephen987 says:
05:15 PM, 06/ 2/09
Yeah, you'll have to borrow the SX4 or the Fit to haul that armoire.
[ducks]
benson2175 says:
09:15 PM, 06/ 2/09
"Just the center sadly"
Not sadly, thankfully, this is a performance sedan and the extra bracing that prevents the folding keeps the car rigid. Unless there is no bracing and it's a cost cutting measure (this is a GM after all).
cruiserhead1 says:
11:38 PM, 06/ 2/09
Look at the photos. There is no additional bracing. There are carpeted seatbacks.
The rear seats look like they were designed to fold down, judging by the pocketed rear seatbottoms and shallow seatbacks w/ clearly open trimmed passthrough...
It is a big gaffe on a sedan, knowing from personal experience how invaluable fold down seats are and knowing what it's like to live without it is severely limiting on a sedan.
But in this case, not enough to sway either way. It looks like a weekend w/ a welder and some auto hinges would solve any problems!
beach15 says:
04:20 AM, 06/ 3/09
benson2175: Precisely. This is more common than you'd think.
cruiserhead1: Just because there isn't a big "X" frame visibly going across the seat back doesn't mean there isn't extra reinforcement. See the large seatback sections on both sides of the opening? Often that is where the structural reinforcements and such are, in a way that then still allows for such a passthrough--rather than nothing.
The Camaro on the same Zeta platform has a split folding rear seat, but that's a different issue as it does share a platform but has a much different structure above that. It all depends.
Folding seats in a sedan is a very useful feature once in a while, but otherwise I don't miss it on my G8 GT--the trunk and rear seat are limo-like as it is, and if I have something very long, hopefully it fits through the passthrough. No biggie. Just a very solid car.