I was quite suprised that the salesman who sold us our car, did show us how the seats folded down (in detail). One thing that many manufacturers do is train the sales staff when a new model comes out. The problem is, that the sales staff changes about as quick as some people change underwear. The knowledge is then lost untill there is a new model. I used to do these kind of "demonstrations" back in the late 80's and early 90's. The company was contracted to do these "demonstrations" for various manufacrures. They used to get a group of us that raced SCCA club racing to work with them for a few days when they came through the St.Louis area. Groups of salesmen would come down to I-55 or Gateway raceway (depending on vehicle) and we would go out and show them what the vehicles would do.
The last one I did, was for the Jeep Cherokee (in 1993). What was great, was that they let us beat the tar out of the Jeeps for a day before the salesmen would start showing up. We had an off road course, drag strip and wet parking lot to test out various things on them. They had about 20 Jeeps and a Toyota 4Runner, Nissan Pathfinder, Chevy Jimmy? and a Ford Explorer. From talking to the guys that ran the show, they said that the Nissan was the only vehicle that they haden't broke something on (after 12 weeks of bashing). The Jeeps constantly were tearing off the rear bumpers and the shocks (Bilstein) were always being replaced (they would start to clunk real bad).
I got a feeling that the new VW's coming out will have this kind of "demonstration". As usual, the knowledge will be lost in a few short months.