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Even though, still vague to me. I assume it will become evident how to lift and pull on the bench seat in order to get it free. And I assume the seat “covers” mentioned within, are covers on the under and back sides of the seats and have nothing to do with the actual removal of the seat assemblies. Taking the rear seats out may be a good work plan if you ever attempt to tint the rear glass – even if you have that job done by the pro’s
Looks like there is a bulkhead between the passenger compartment and the trunk area. I have always thought Toyota deliberately chose to not allow the rear seats to fold down in the interest of safety, more so than because there was no other room for the batteries. It is nice to know that there is a barrier between me and the big volts. Be aware that the Buick LaCrosse E-assist does have a pass thru with the same arrangement of the hybrid battery behind the rear seat. However the hybrid voltage is much less (about ½ of the HS) and the batteries are much smaller. And, the pass thru is smaller than normal also. The lack of a pass thru in a sedan is more of a trade off than an advantage or disadvantage IMO.
You just got to find to two latches, pick a side, and yank.
I looked at the Buick. It's nice. It such a mild hybrid though. You can't really operate it like we can or a Prius driver can in hybrid mode. That's probably why there is a pass through on the rear seat. There's always a trade off.
Dave, thanks for posting this. So there's really no bulkhead, as you can see from the pic. Just the batteries snuggled up against the back seat . Why did I remove my seat? Because a mouse got into my car and died this week, and the smell was coming from the rear seat area. I also found a mouse nest in my spare tire well, so I assumed he crawled from there to someplace behind my seat (or maybe there was another nest under the seat). Did I find the mouse? Not yet, but now I think I've narrowed it to the rear seat heating vent under the driver's seat. At least there's a strong smell coming from there. Any ideas how to remove that vent? I tried pulling on it, sliding it back and forth, feeling around for a catch, etc. I'm almost tempted to just break it and buy a new one, if it helps me find that dead mouse! I left the car windows open all night, and this morning the whole garage smelled bad.
never mind - with a little more sunlight I can see there's screw covers on that heater vent - got it off now. Poured some baking soda in there to suck up the smell. Probably need to keep the car opened up a few days before putting it back together. Let's see how bad the garage smells tonight...
Man does that suck. Seems like everyone has a bad mouse story and their car.
With my other car, I noticed a nasty smell every time I turned on the A/C and it seem like it just wasn't blowing. So I decided to pull the cabin air filter. And there on top of the filter I found his nest. I don't know where he got all that stuff, but once I removed it and replaced the filter, all the smell was gone. Of course now I have mouse poison in the garage.
My last car, the little devil decided my O2 sensor wire was in the way of his nest building, so he chewed it in two. I didn't find out until my car went into "limp home" mode about 5 miles from home and I sputtered home. After I replaced that, I found out the CV joint boot also caused the mouse nest building problems, so he chewed a hole in that too.
On the girl friends car, about two cars ago, she had the smell of death so bad she had to keep it outside. I finally tracked that down down to a bird she hit and it went in to the grill intake and got lodged where you couldn't see until you took off almost the whole front end.
You're not alone. The smell is very localized. Use your nose, and concentrate in that area. The little ****** can fit in about a 1/2" hole.
As you can see, and pertaining to the other thread about batteries, that 12 volt battery is right there with us in the cabin. That's why proper venting of a replacement battery is so important.
02-29-12, 12:43 PM
. Why did I remove my seat? Because a mouse got into my car and died this week, and the smell was coming from the rear seat area. I also found a mouse nest in my spare tire well, so I assumed he crawled from there to someplace behind my seat (or maybe there was another nest under the seat). Did I find the mouse? Not yet, but now I think I've narrowed it to the rear seat heating vent under the driver's seat. At least there's a strong smell coming from there. Any ideas how to remove that vent? I tried pulling on it, sliding it back and forth, feeling around for a catch, etc. I'm almost tempted to just break it and buy a new one, if it helps me find that dead mouse! I left the car windows open all night, and this morning the whole garage smelled bad. 
