My Jag does fold flat without lifting the rear seat. Not something that makes much odd for most people, I guess you have a specific reason for needing this feature. The Passat market sector is strinking since they hay days of the B5, so cost is a major driving factor.

Have you consider other styles of car?

The current mark 3 Octavia is like the new Passat - but actually I prefer it.

The seats aren't completely flat, but flat enough, and if you have the variable boot floor there's no step up from boot floor to seat back. But most conveniently, whereas on the last Octavia you had to (1) lower headrests, (2) pull up the seat cushions, one from each side of the car, (3) lower the backrests.....all you have to do now is pull the levers in the boot and down go the backrests. And you can still use the floor behind the front seats, which you couldn't before.

Mine has had a lot of varied loads in there in the last few months, and it's never failed to swallow what I've tried to get in. I can't think of any difference that a 100% flat floor would have made. So if you want a Passat, have no fears on this score.

It's a lovely car but why have VW made a very bad mistake in following the trend of making the rear seat base fixed so when the rear seat back folds down it does not fold flat ?

As has been said, the new version is probably cheaper to assemble. And of course when the next generation appears, VW can announce a breakthrough by putting it back again ....

Peugeot did something similar with the flat boot floor in the 205 and 306, which used all the space between the wheel arches. But in later models it was easier to mount the rear shocks vertically than horizontally, so several inches of useful load width was lost.

Edited by Andrew-T on 14/01/2015 at 18:42

"When my wife visits the garden centre, we often lift the rear seat base to maximise the available height for accommodating potted plants."

Nigel, if the new Passat is like my Octavia, there's even more space for potted plants on the floor behind the front seats, which wasn't available when the space was taken up by the folded-forward seat cushions, as in my previous Octavias.

Those of us, like Bladerrw and I, who have actually filled our cars to the gunwales have found that this isn't the problem that some people think it is.

Edited by Avant on 15/01/2015 at 23:46