So I just bought two 8 foot kayaks. One will fit inside my C with the rear seats folded down. The problem: the kayak is too wide to fit through the "40" part of the back seat, so the entire back seat needs to be folded down, which makes it so nobody can sit behind the passenger seat (without laying down into the trunk). I know there are roof racks and foam blocks and such, but ideally one would fit inside and one on the roof with foam blocks, with room for a driver and passenger behind the driver. That would be possible if the 40 was behind the driver's seat and the rest was the "60", because that creates a more wholly-connected open area (the middle "20" of the back seat lines up with the center console gap). Does anybody know the reason behind having the 60 portion behind the driver? I've tried googling but didn't get far. My SO's Hyundai Accent hatchback is the same way, except it's even more annoying, because both kayaks plus two passengers could fit if the back seats were switched around.
That is a good question that I also wondered about. My guess is, they didn't want to make different seats for left hand drive?
Seems like a decent explanation. I also wonder if one of the two configurations is standard. I google image searched 60/40 fold down seats and got a mixture of results. I guess having the larger fold-down seat behind the driver makes it so two passengers can fit in the back seat with large cargo, or gives one back-seat passenger enough room to not have the cargo shift into them.
I think I tried that configuration - the issue there was that, turned on its side, it's too tall for the space between seat and roof. The passenger seat doesn't fold/slide forward or back as far as it could, otherwise that might work. Also, I have a C, so that could be the difference.
I have several kayaks. Getting hard shells kayaks & passengers transported with smaller cars is a real pain. So, I did a couple of things: 1. Get a few decent air-inflatable kayaks like the type from Advanced Elements. They're pretty darned good and often a little faster than the hard shells. Just don't run into barnacle-covered rocks. 2. Get a trailer and put a load of hard shell kayaks on the trailer. I can pile on 3/4 kayaks on the trailer. Both have saved me a lot of headache. On a hardshell, small car note with 60/40 - I can only squeeze one person in there with a lot of discomfort unless I get a roof rack.
Worth an email to Toyota? Here's a little info on the history of right vs left driving: Why in Britain do we drive on the left?
The safest place in the car besides the driver seat is behind the drivers seat, in part due to self preservation. the driver will try to avoid damaging themselves in an acident In most cases when people put Child safety seats they put them behind the driver. To make it easier to get the young-un in and out. sicne child safety seats are pretty large, having them on the 60 side of the split makes sense... JMO....
^ do not know: if the child seat's on the driver's side and you're parallel parked you're getting the kid in/out of the vehicle on the traffic side.
I did not say that my logic wasn't flawed... I'd venture to say that most folks don't parallel park. but the regular pruis has the 40 split behind the driver... my wife's saturn vue has the 60 split behind the driver.... maybe the designer has carte blanche...
The C was made to be as cheap to Produce as possible (to compete against the 2010 Insight at ~19,000). That meant only one rear seat used worldwide, rather than stocking two different seats for different regions. Ditto the rearwiper.
Another guess... Around 2010 (Gen3) the United States went to a new cargo space definition called "EPA CARGO SPACE" and this allowed Toyota to show like 21.5-ft3 for Gen3 versus 16-ft3 in the Gen2, but most of the cargo space difference Gen3 vs. Gen2 is the just that the EPA re-definition must allow them to quote with seat down or something.
