Television ads for the new Chevy Malibu show rear seats that can slide back to front, not unlike front seats.
I can think of three reasons to have the front seats slide.
Move the driver to a comfortable distance from the controls.
To divide the available space between front and rear passengers.
To make quarters and other dropped objects easier to reach.
I cannot think of a single reason that a back seat would be slid forward. What am I missing?
The commercials don’t help with the true utility. They show a Malibu balanced on the edge of a lifted drawbridge in an action movie. When the passengers in the back seats slide their seats forward, the center of gravity changes and the car tips forward onto the bridge.
That doesn’t happen to me often. And when it does, I typically slide the front seat forward to avoid death.
I’ve always had the same question. OAT1957, the question I’d have is why would anyone want to decrease the legroom, why not always have it at the maximum? The only additional attribute I thought about is that perhaps you can move the seat up so that you can recline the back a bit more, but I’m not sure if the rear seats are reclinable.
On the Chevrolet Malibu info page it says “Multi-Flex 60/40 sliding/reclining rear seat,” so it does recline. Also I notice the sliding rear seat is only on the LS model, which appears to be some sort of a hatchback design. This suggests that the sliding rear seat is to increase cargo space at the expense of rear legroom, or vice versa.
On higher-end cars than the Malibu (Mercedes, BMW, etc.) the rear seats slide forward and backward only to accommodate the reclining function. I don’t think there’s even a separate control for front to back movement.
Man, it’d be nice if I could just hop down into my garage and check.
