I love well-integrated cargo covers. Our Audi A4 Avant's shade-style cargo cover is one of the good ones. It's easy to use and slides up a nifty diagonal track as it retracts to give you wide access to whatever you're storing in the wagon's 17.3-cubic-foot luggage area. But that nifty diagonal track will come back to bite you, if you don't make sure to return it to the closed position (seen above).
(A4's cargo cover in the open position)
Forget to put the cargo cover back where it belongs and this is the view you're greeted with in your rear-view mirror.
That's about half of what you should be able to see via the rearview mirror. I made this mistake at least 3 times over the holiday weekend as we loaded and unloaded gear from the cargo area.
If you owned this car and drove it every day, at least once you got used to resetting the cover in place, your stuff wouldn't ever be accidentally exposed to felonius passersby.
Bryn MacKinnon, Senior Editor, Edmunds.com @ 14,973 miles
slickersdrip says:
07:30 PM, 07/ 6/09
That's kinda bad. Even my Neon (after I removed the massive wing) has a very large view out of the back. That's kinda painful for a guy who advocates station wagons all the time in every situation.
brn says:
08:11 PM, 07/ 6/09
That's funny. I suspect they did it to get the stiff piece out of your way while loading cargo. I don't think it's a good compromise. Mostly because your cargo may not allow you to fully extend the cover, so you're stuck with poor rearward visibility.
adantium says:
05:51 AM, 07/ 7/09
I always remember to place back my cargo cover as living in a busy city downtown you can't leave anything in view of prying eyes.
vvk says:
07:13 AM, 07/ 7/09
I just don't understand this post. What are you saying? If you forget to flush your toilet, is it toilet's fault?
bmwbig6 says:
08:44 AM, 07/ 7/09
I know when I forget to turn off my headlights, my battery dies. Stupid German Engineering! *sarcasm*
hurls65 says:
09:49 AM, 07/ 7/09
Yeah, I did that once and learned my lesson...
It's not a rigid cover, so you can also just retract it into the housing behind the rear seat...
legacygt says:
08:04 PM, 07/ 7/09
The shape of many wagons these days seems to lead to larger and larger rigid pieces on the cargo covers. I'm finding these pretty annoying and not just for the reason you mention. If you roll the cover back, the rigid piece still intrudes into the cargo area making it difficult/cruel to put a large dog back there. It also makes it difficult to fit taller items. My 05 Legacy has a separate piece that attaches to the hatch that covers the rearmost portion of the cargo area. It is annoying to have this as a second piece (that often falls off) but at least it can be removed easily and tucked out of the way. More importantly it allows the retractable cover to have a smaller rigid section.
tregger says:
11:41 PM, 07/ 9/09
My VW Touareg has the same type of cargo cover and the only way it is flipped up is if I leave it that way. 99% of the time it covers my cargo.
This is driver error and it almost seems like you are trying to find something to complain about. Stupid is what stupid does.
natekpdx says:
12:47 PM, 07/28/09
I have done this exact same thing a few times. Just roll down all the windows and gun it! The air will usually blow the cover back.