Hello,

Considering purchasing a 7 Gen ES350 / ES300h for a 1-car solution. I highly value refinement, noise isolation and a comfortable ride. Will be using it in/on city, highway, occasional road trips. I like to go skiing and would love to take my future ES on ski trips. Wondering if anyone takes their ES on skiing trips.. and if so, how does it fare? Is it possible to fit 2 pairs of skis through the ski pass-thru that is built into the rear seats? Would a snowboard fit? Or have folks found a roof rack that will accommodate skis?

Ahem Lexus if you are reading this, please implement fold-down rear seats in your next facelift/generation of ES.

 

They eliminated fold down seats in favor of a more rigid ride.

 

While a "more rigid ride" may be a byproduct of a fixed rear, it's likely done in this scenario for cost reasons considering total vehicle packaging & cost. The architecture is already inherently extremely rigid and folding seats come in all the other TNGA models, even the Avalon. Personally I applaud the choice as I really don't have a need for folding seats and would rather have a boxed rear (I study this stuff) BUT I will say if it were like the Avalon or any other Toyota model which shares this chassis, I really don't think any difference would be noticed. I think Lexus using the reason of added stiffness may be technically true, it's likely just a cover for cutting costs in this specific case because I imagine many customers would be wanting folding seats.

 

I agree that you can get excellent rigidity with folding rear seats. My last three sedans have had folding seats and the seatbacks and latches are very solid and heavy duty. Each of them had excellent crash test scores too. The ES has done well without them so there's probably not much incentive for Lexus to add them at this point.

 

Well the crash test scores have almost zero to do with torsional rigidity. Cars that are safe tend to be torsionally rigid but not all torsionally rigid cars are necessarily "Safe"

totally separate ball game. but yes the 7ES competitors can provide as solid if not a more solid ride with folding seats.

safety comes from layering, optimization, energy management, restraint system design, passenger kinematics etc. you can have an extremely torsionally rigid car but without the right management systems, you are ded.

 

With all due deference to your expertise in chassis engineering, I doubt that the elimination of the folding rear seat for the addition of the bracing was primarilyi a cost-cutting move. Yes, German carmakers are able to deliver a very rigid chassis and still have the rear seats fold down. But Lexus has been using the approach of having a brace replace the Camry/Avalon's folding rear seat for 30 years, and I seriously doubt they were doing it all this time just because they wanted to produce the Lexus rear seat area for less money than a Camry's.

 

No one would know for sure without access to secret insider documents but money is usually the deciding factor rather than "motorsports, yo" especially on something like an ES.

If this were a performance car i'd buy it was done for "rigidity, yO!" but given the nature of the ES being a comfortable grandpa cruiser, they probably looked at the target demo for the car and decided folding seats would be too costly and not necessary to meet sales targets. also given the ES shares a platform, money went to soundproofing and isolation. even a few cents adds up to MAJOR cost over tens of thousands of units. folding seats are expensive both parts & labor wise. costs money to source parts, assemble, put together rather than a fixed piece.

I can't think of one time where I needed my seats to fold down yet.

 

I can't think of one time where I needed my seats to fold down yet.
We have an SUV when those needs arise.

 

CT, I'm confused. You're the person who said in another thread that the real benefit of chassis rigidity was comfort/NVH.

 

When we go down to one vehicle (soon) folding rear seats will go from "nice to have" to "must have" due to the versatility if and when needed.

 

I hate the car did not come with folding seats. If this was my only vehicle not having folded seats would have been a disqualifier.

 

I'm not buying this. They claim they added a structural brace - logic tells me that would likely have an added cost. If not, they're stuffing a lb of bologna into a half lb bag. In other words full of it.

 

Wanted to come back here and update this thread - took my ES 350 for a skiing trip over the weekend and it was great. In case anyone was wondering, the ski pass-thru is large enough to fit two pairs of wide skis (92mm and 99mm width with one pair being 180cm) and all equipment for a ski weekend.

It was really weird to be pretty much the only sedan (let alone FWD sedan) in the sea of SUV's/trucks in the entire parking lot. I get it - skiing with say a family of 4 with skis or a snowboard wouldn't be possible in an ES but I still think sedans are underrated for what they can do.

That said, a fold-down seat would still be preferable!

 

Glad to hear that ski pass-through actually lets you pass skis through. Someone on this forum or some other one asked a few months back whether the hole was big enough to admit a snowboard. One publication said it was not.

 

Here's why we don't have folding rear seats