My mother currently has a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan and a major selling point was its Stow 'N Go seating, in which the second and third rows of seats can be folded into the floor of the van, leaving a more-or-less flat-floored cargo area. Are there any competing minivans with comparable features, from the 2012 model onward (we expect a lease-return vehicle as a replacement).
A deal-breaker is a bench seat that must be removed from the van entirely and stored somewhere else. The dog won’t hunt.
Brand new, they all do.
Some second hand ones may have been bought empty in the back and so have lesser seats of various types now.
Here’s a review of 5
no. most of the competing ones have fold-flat third row seats, but a stow-away second row is Chrysler exclusive.
Pretty sure this is it. My Odyssey has fold down thirds, removable middles. Not too hard to manage.
My 2010 Mazda 5 van has 3-row fold-downs but model is no longer made, since 2012, I believe.
The 5’s seatbacks fold flat, but what OP is referring to (Chrysler’s Stow-n-Go) the seats actually fold down into the floor of the van. As though you’ve actually removed the seats entirely.
[quote=“jz78817, post:6, topic:783487”]
The 5’s seatbacks fold flat, but what OP is referring to (Chrysler’s Stow-n-Go) the seats actually fold down into the floor of the van. As though you’ve actually removed the seats entirely.
[/QUOTE]Yes, the seat storage in this vehicle (a Chrysler Town & Country) is pretty much identical to our current Dodge Grand Caravan, but if this is typical (especially for the second row) only on Dodge/Chrysler vehicles… well, pity. What my mom mainly wants the vehicle for is a one-person camper, i.e. she could throw an air mattress across the floor of the cargo area. A full-size van could manage it, obviously, but the additional seating is useful on occasion. Among vehicles with only movable (as opposed to stowable) second-row seats, can any clear as much as six feet of floor-space?
The StownGo are a Chrysler exclusive, however I have found that the Kia Sedona has something very close, on models other than the top end trim(the top trim comes with second row buckets) the third row folds flat into the floor, and the 2nd row folds up forward to sit as a sort of undifferentiated block against the front seats. You don’t get quite as much space as you do with StowNGo but almost, and I found that the Kia’s 2nd row seats fold up forward a lot more quickly than one could store the Chrysler’s, which requires lifting up the floormats and a fair bit of wrangling with a somewhat finicky mechanism. I personally would prefer the Kia’s system.
Here’s a video
Better video.
Unbelievably, you can haul 4’x8’ sheets of drywall in a Dodge/Chrysler minivan with all the seats folded flat and still shut the tailgate.
Everyone (including me) forgets the Routan.
It looks like the Routan’s middle seats fold but do not disappear.
Thanks to all respondents. When the time comes, I’ll take a measuring tape to some local Kia and Toyota and Volks dealerships to see which minivans, if any, sill be suitable.
Well they don’t make the Routan anymore so not much point in going to the VW store, and also as you point out they never had the 2nd row StownGo seats which surprised me.
I found a video that said their reasoning was that making the second row stowable would require limiting how thick the second row seats could be, which would make them below VW’s strict safety standards.
I don’t know if I buy this, but there you go.
LOL.
it was because the Routan was a re-styled Caravan/Town & Country and Chrysler didn’t want to give VW their key feature.
amazing how much horseshit gets passed around and believed about cars.
VW’s “standards” as it were have been severely called into question on many fronts. And not just their diesel cheating either. Germans would have you BELIEVE their cars are safer than their American counterparts, thus justifying the increased purchase cost and maintenance costs. It’s entirely untrue.
Here you go…not too many German cars on these lists, none of them at the top:
The Chevy Malibu?!?!?!?!
That is how my Odyssey works, 2013. WE were replacing a 2000 Chrysler mini van. We looked at a 2013 Dodge Caravan with full fold down seats. But the middle fold down seat was like a bench seat. I would not ask an adult to sit back there for a trip over 15 minutes. So we went to Honda. The Honda is not as quiet than the Chrysler but is more comfortable.
in the GRAND Caravan. The only difference (well the major difference) between the Caravan and the Grand Caravan is the extra 1 ft in length. That is what is needed to fit the 4x8 into the back. Having had both, the ability to occasionally carry a full 4x8 made the Grand very much worth it. Especially in the used market there isn’t that much difference between the prices of the two models.
there hasn’t been a non-Grand (short wheelbase) Caravan or Town & Country since 2007.