how much extra bracing could you possibly need for fold down seats? i can understand a vert with all the additional bracing and weight but i cant imagine a fold down seat needing more than a few brackets and a latch.

 

Well, imagine taking down a whole wall inside your house. This wall runs the width of your house. Now the only support is from the side wall, you would need to built a box frame and a big support beam on top. Its the same with the big opening with the fold down seat, Lexus would have to built a box support frame around the opening.

 

i see what you mean. looking back at my old car with fold down seats, i can picture exactly what you mean.

 

if there are fold down seats, isn't there a beam under the rear shelf?

 

kalvano,
With the rattles the car comes with from the get-go, what's a couple more? The rear seats should fold.

 

on the 2gs, if you take out the rear seat back, it's just a X brace there. i agree making rear seat fold down would need more suport elsewhere, but if bmw can do it, lexus should be able to without some major work

 

dang it i guess I am a moron.. lame.. i went from a 5 series with no fold down seats.. it was an optional that you had to pay more for.. lame.. oh well. i guess i will just go buy a truck now. lol

 

I would personally love to have fold down rear seats so that I can put more stuff in it.

 

The back passengers already do, there is a TSB out for rear window rattle and sunshade rattle And that little pass thru door in the rear arm rest rattles sometimes, imagine how much more rattle you would get if the whole rear seat has a pass thru

 

That's why my wife bought me a Pilot

 

i dont know my 2007 camry xle isnt a luxury car and it doesnt have fold rear seats. it also has the armrest pass through. i think it is a toyota/lexus thing

 

The GS have such a small trunk, it can really use a fold down rear seat option.

 

I also thought it would be nice to have but I have a wagon to haul things so not to risk damage to the GS.

I laughed out loud when I saw a man in his new 2008 GS in the parking lot of Home Dept just cramming (at least attemping to cram) a ton of lumber into his GS.

Wish I had a camera.

 

The rigidity of the chassis (and consequently the handling of the car) is surely a major reason for the lack of folding seats. Well, BMW can do it, so it doable, no doubt, but does require strengthening of the chassis elsewhere. This is the main reason convertibles weigh more than similar cars with a fixed roof.

Another reason for the non-existance of folding seats could be that folding into a flat low surface could have an impact on the design of the seats.

Personally I find that the advantage of folding seats would be of limited benefits due to the shape of the chassis / low height of the trunk hence making it in any case difficult to load big stuff in.