Made a small discovery

[aaronearles]

Hopefully I'm not the ONLY one who didn't know this already...

If you fold the rear seats down, and apply some (quite a bit of) pressure, the will lock into the flat position, only to be released by the same button that was used to unlock them from their upright position.

If you watch the pins in between the two seats at the hinge, the release button operates them, there is a second notch all the way down where it locks into place. You have to put some weight on the larger 60 seat to squeeze the cushions together.

This was a little funny to me because I built the box in the back to make it as flush as possible even though my seats were still tilted, and I had even considered taking them out to geta flat surface back there. That's actually what I was looking at doing when I discovered this.







And yes, I know I need to clean my car...

[pix]

Good to know. I didn't think they would flod flat, or I'd have to do the complete seat removal, but that'd be too tedious.

[Leith1812]

News to me and one of my biggest peeves was that they didn't fold down completely.

This eliminates a lot of work for me! Thanks for sharing!

[danger d]

thanks i didnot knew.BTW what is the socket size to remove the baby seat anchor bolt. thanks.

[aaronearles]

Sorry, I don't remember. I took them out as soon as I got it. I may have even used an adjustable since I usually carry one in the car.

[hoody123]

I had no idea. I thought it was a pretty serious oversite that they didn't fold flatter!

[OPEL Blitz]

Neat! How much is quite alot? Jump on the seats?

[SaturnRaycer]

D***n! Who knew? Now I gotta go try it out!

It certainly wasn't addressed in the owner's manual. But then the owners manual is written more by lawyers who want to remind us "Do not open the door when the car is moving; you could fall out."

Not as bad as a Pontiac from the early 90's. The owners manual was a 3/4" thick book of "don't do this, it's stupid" stuff. You learned how to operate the controls from a cassette tape that came with the car!

[baldo]

Just tried this on my wife's 4 door XE and it didn't work. I had all of my weight on the 3/4 side and my wife had all of her weight on the 1/4 side of the seat and nothing. Maybe we are too light

[Astra La Vista!]

Gonna try this out tomorrow morning on my 3XR (too lazy right now to head down ten floors to the underground). Probably take the baby seat anchors off too at the same time.

[aaronearles]

Originally Posted by SaturnRaycer

You learned how to operate the controls from a cassette tape that came with the car!

That's hilarious, you just reminded me of the cassette in my 91 Beretta, I remember the girl ended with the whole Heartbeat of America slogan.


Watch the pins as you apply weight, you can see it start to shift as it gets closer to the notch, I can't imagine the XE uses a different seat. Test it with the smaller seat to see the point where it locks. I am a big boy though

[aaronearles]

Originally Posted by OPEL Blitz

Neat! How much is quite alot? Jump on the seats?

Haha, it did take some bouncing on the 3/4 seat, the small one is relatively easy though.

It took me a few minutes to figure out because I thought the hinge was just getting stuck on the wood box I have squeezed in back, but I pulled it out to test. Plus you can definitely tell when you release it with the button.

[PanVet]

So once you have them all the way down how hard is it to get them to release.

I would think that if it takes that much pressure to get them down there is going to be a lot of tension on the hinge pin holding them in place and you have to jump on them to get them to release.

Will have to try it out later on. Good to know though.

[outtafocus]

I discovered this same thing a few weeks ago when I had my rear seat cushion out for a sub install and noticed I had to push the button to get the seat back to fold up again.

[SaturnRaycer]

I got the right side to latch, but the left (60%) side wouldn't latch down. Then I pulled the center headrest up to it's full height. It latches down now.

It does take a fair amount of effort to release the latches after the seatbacks are latched down. On the same order as getting them down, but you also have to push in on the button.

Unless you build a box to level the trunk floor up to the seats, you'll still have a step, but you gain half an inch or more in space with the seats latched all the way down.

[Nightwalker]

Oh how I wish I knew this only 3 weeks ago. Good find though!

[tackepj]

Had no idea--great find! Of all things to be left out of the manual. Our VUE does this, and I was surprised when I tried it a while ago to no avail. I guess I should've had a bigger breakfast.

On our VUE, it's easy to release the folded seats when latched by pressing down on them when pulling the release.

[aaronearles]

Yeah I was a little irritated when I saw how easy it was in the new Vue, and that (i thought) ours didn't do it at all.

I totally forgot about the headrests, I have all 3 of mine removed because I have the seats folded down more often than up.

[BNM449]

I removed my headrests too, except for the center one. I discovered the latch-down accidentally as well, on the 40% side ( passenger.) For almost the whole first year I never used the back seats at all, and when I tried to fold up the passenger-side one, it was locked.

Did you folks notice how HEAVY those seat-backs are ?!

Also, the little clips/buttons that lock the headrests into the seats came out and went missing; I had to yank out the metal c-clip with needlepoint pliers to get the headrests out.
However, the headrests will stay put when installed because the fit is pretty tight anyway.

~N~

[marx404]

I tried, no dice. Should I remove the headrests first?