truelove

this past weekend i discovered one more reason to love my car. my wife and i made a trip to chicago this weekend for her sister's wedding to my best friend. anyway, we had TONS of stuff to take up there. luggage, gifts, her dress, etc, etc,. anyway, i took out the little divider thing in the back of my car, folded down the seats and 'poof', the entire car is one huge trunk. if you don't have to carry any passengers, you can fit ALOT of stuff in this little car. even more stuff than your standard large sedan's trunk, especially if you need to carry something that happens to be large in all three dimensions.

one thing that sweetened it even more for me was the fact that my wife's sister had made fun of my car in the past for having no cargo room (it's a small hatchback ya know). but she owns a cavalier which is even smaller (go figure that one out ) anyway, she had trouble fitting just a couple big suitcases in her car and my wife and i had 3 large suitcases, her dress (which had to be completely laid out flat, try doing that in a trunk), my tux, and 2 large wrapped gift boxes. all that with TONS of room to spare. even with the seats folded down in a sedan, the coupe can still fit more. with the seats down and the divider taken out, everything behind the driver and passenger is cargo space, it's great.

i've never owned a hatchback before. I LOVE THIS CAR, even it's cargo space, which is not lacking at all. just thought i'd share.

tsberkey

Anybody who owns a cavalier should:

1) Not speak about cars to anyone
2) Have a Scarlet "GM" stamped in their forehead to warn others
3) Not be acknowledged as a blood relative

Glad you were able to have fun with this (at her expense, of course!)

Matt230K

Snob! I once owned a cavalier, and not ashamed to say it.

vraa

It's okay, we'll enroll you into some physcological help.

Rick

This past weekend, I too had the opportunity to load up the coupe and go...
A friend of mine and I went on a 3 day backpacking trip, with all our rain gear, food, water and clothes stuffed into 5400cu in. Kelty packs. Now, these packs are 28x18x10 and weigh in at about 45lbs... After flipping the back seats down, they slid in without problems, leaving space for boots and water bottles against the tailgate (cargo cover in place).
I could barely fit the same gear in my previous car (Eagle Talon), and even there, it was pressed right up to the driver/passenger seats.

tsberkey

Sorry, I really was just poking fun. Considering that I was driving a beat up 1991 Toyota with 180,000 miles on it just 4 years ago...

hokusbenz

thing i hate most about folding the seats down is the impressions that are left in the seat from the seatbelt buckles and stuff. it is worse when the seat is down for a awhile or something heavy was on top of it. it is very apparent on my leather seats, and there are some impressions that never went totally away.

KOMPRESSORnSC

When I first got the car, with the seats down, I had trouble getting the driver seat back as far as I wanted becasue of the headrests. Well, stupid me, I just took the headrests out! It also keeps them from getting messed up being pressed against the bottom of the seat. With them out, you have the same seat adjustment as you do with the seat in normal position. My Jeep had a place to store the headrests when you took them out, but I just take these inside.

hokusbenz-I had the same problem at first, but all you have to do is tuck the buckles under the seats, parallel with the bottom of the seat. You have to hold them back there as you put the seat down, but no visible marks!

GJR

My thoughts exactly...

Diz382Benz

my frist car was a '86 cavalier, With a full blown audio system.

got me through high school

nboyd

This is the reason why 90% of cars in Europe are hatchbacks.

avlis

With the seats folded down, the floor is larger than the bed of my last pickup truck.

20FHK02

This is one advantage of having cloth seats!

Kal Rubinson

Then, you should have gotten the wagon. Even more space and infinitely better-looking than the coupe!

Kal

VoyagerDude

That's personal preference Kal. While I agree that the wagon looks OK, coupe is nicer!

I one fit a full sized Tornado foosball table in it's box into the coupy. That was impressive.

Kal Rubinson

Sure, it's personal preference. Fortunately, mine is shared by my wife. We looked at the coupe and, despite it's price, performance and hauling capacity, both of us felt as if it was ungracefully proportioned. Still feel that way.

truelove

i do love the look of the wagon but it's a little expensive and i don't need a wagon yet. my wife HATES station wagons, she can't get the picture of the family truckster out of her head when you mention station wagon. wagons definitely don't look like they used to in the 80s, but my wife still thinks of them that way. maybe if i started calling them estates instead of wagons, she would get over it.

i do love the look of the coupe though. cargo space and good looks, gotta love this car. and i just laugh when someone says that my car has no passenger room or cargo space. if they honestly think that, they haven't been in my car. i just got a comment the other day about how comfortable and how much passenger space my car has for it's exterior size. mercedes sure knows how to design cars, that's for damn sure.

avlis

I rode in the backseat of a Mercury Cougar (the newer hatchback style) a few days ago. I though it would be similar to my hatchback MB in terms of space. Not even close. It was more like the backseat of a 2+2. Deep-dish seats and an inch of legroom. Horrible...

truelove

here's something i just can't figure out. my wife owns an alero coupe and i can't stand driving it. it has NO front leg room. i can't even come close to stretching my legs out when i have cruise on, i hate it.

anyway, in my car, not only can i stretch my legs all the way out, but if i put the seat back all the way, i can't depress the pedals all the way to the floor, there's just that much space. and i'm not short, i'm six foot tall. TONS of leg room in the coupe, i can't speak for the manual seats since i have automatic seats. but do auto seats have more range of motion anyway?

anyway, if you look up vehicle specs at any auto site, it lists the MB coupe as having 42 inches of front leg room and the alero as having 42.2 inches!?!!?! what? the alero has more!? i'm completely confused by this because this is just not possible. and yes, i do put the alero's seats all the way back.

anyway, if you want a sort of cool looking car with no room and no *****, buy an alero. my poor wife, i make fun of her for buying that car. it's very cheap looking on the inside, very cheaply made overall, of course she has the lowest end model. next time she buys a car i'm "helping" her with the decision.

Matt230K

I'm 6'3" with manual seats. If I have the seat all the way back and down, I can't push the clutch all the way to the floor.

hphan

Ha, funny this thread should pop up. My friend called me today asking if I had access to a pickup. I asked what for, and he said he just bought a 27" tv that he wanted to return. I told him no problem, we'll just dump it in my car. So we get it in my car without any hassle, and he's just amazed.

We pull up to Best Buy (I'm in there every week buying DVDs, so the door check guy knows me). He sees us pull a TV out of my car and his jaw just dropped and he had to come outside to take a look

Ditto the guy bringing the new TV out. When he saw the car he was skeptical. So I pop the trunk, and he was impressed with how easily the TV fit in there.

Kal: You may like your wagon better, but I like my hatchback better. That's the beauty of life, variety! But my love of styling is obviously odd, my last 2 cars were Saabs.

20FHK02

Not sure... maybe a 27" is the max limit? I tried to fit a 32" TV with box but no luck...

hphan

well, i had about 3-4" of clearance so it went in easy. i can see how a 32" tv wouldn't have made it.

Kal Rubinson

Since you brought it up, so were mine! If they hadn't dropped the hatchback, I might be driving one still. (I think the shape of the Saab hatchbacks is more satisfying than that of the sharply truncated c coupe.)

One day, we stopped at an antique shop near the house in CT and, one thing led to another, we bought a desk. The owner, who knows us well, started dragging out the blankets and straps to put it on top. We stopped him, folded down the rear seats and shoved the whole thing in. Even closed the hatch. I think his jaw is still dislocated. :p

Hmmm. Wonder if the desk would fit in the C320Wagon............