Seven seater Passat

I turned my Passat TDI into a seven seater (well sort of) here are the pics.


1: Put two plates up at the front of the load space.
Each plate is about 4mm thick steel.
I drilled each and tapped 10mm threads into the holes.
Then I drilled hole through the boot floor.
I also removed the thick sealant that covered the boot floor (just underneath the plate) so that the plate is against metal, and it a bit more flush.
Then I pulled two M10 bolts up through the hole with a piece of string, and threaded them up into the plate.
Then I locked to nuts onto each bolt, so that I could turn them with a wrench (you can't get at them from under the car, they are in a recess above the exhasut system on one side, and above the fuel tank on the other).
Lastly a ground off the excess bolt, so as to get a flush finish.
Each plate has two M10 bolts with big washers holding it down to the floor.


2: Put two plates at the back of the load space.
These are down in a similar way, with holes drilled into the rear box section and then M10 bolts pulled through the the holes with string, and threaded into an M10 thread that I made in each angled plate.


3: Then I made the actual seat itself
This is made with two pieces of plywood, and lots of steel angle section lengths. All of the critical points are held together with steel plates, such as where the seat belts screw to the seat frame.


The seat is screwed down to the floor plates with four M10 bolts.
It can go in front facing like this, which means that one of the middle seats has to be folded so that the child can clamber into the load space.


Or it can be screwed down the other way around.

Kindly modelled by my near two year old daughter, Maria.

Its not a perfect solution.
The whole thing would have to be removed to get at the spare wheel if I had a puncture.
I will have to add head restraints to take a child much bigger than Maria, and in forward facing mode I will have to move the seat forward a bit as it is right up against the tailgate glass and the slode of the glass does not give room for a head restraint where it is.
It doesn't fold, so has to be removed completely it any load space is wanted.

I read that Saab chose not to put a 3rd seat in the back of their estate models due to concerns about child safety in the event of a collision.

I don't doubt your workmanship, but I'd be hesitant to put such precious (Maria's a cutie!) cargo back there.

I don't intend to use it that often. Every year or two my wifes parents will come over from Spain, for example, and unless we can all get in one car, then we are just trapped in the house.

I bet Maria won't actually sit back there more than two or three times a year.

The back end of the car is pretty strong. It would take quite a smash for it to be a problem, I would have thought, but yes, if I get to the point where I need to use it more often then I guess I'll have to get a proper minivan or something, because of the safety issue.

It would seem a bit silly to buy a minivan now when I only need those extra seats a couple of times a year...

The other possibility is a Peugeot 406 familiale, or an old Peugeot 505 wagon.

I'm horrified by this thought.
I know that some European countries have varying standards, but here in the US you must use approved equipment to seat a child.

A rear facing seat is possibly safe (such as on some Volvos and Audis) but it has been engineered as such, and is always a risk in a rear end collision. Do you know how your seat will fare in a crash?

How valuable is your daughter's life? I'm serious.

While I admire your engineering ingenuity, I think the whole exercise is at best pointless and at worst dangerous. Besides which, the vehicle you need is called a VW Sharan and I'm sure you can get one over there, or a number of vehicles which are better suited for this purpose.

Volkswagen actually did sell a bench seat, rear facing, to go in the load space of any B3 or B4 wagon.

I was told that they are not longer available.

I have the drawings for how the proper VW one mounts to the floor, and I am pretty confident that mine is better. For starters it uses twice as many bolts as the VW one. Also I can mount mine forward facing so that I can get a child seat in there that is supposed to go in forward facing.

Yes I could go and buy a VW Sharan TDI. Oh but then I can't. I just do not have the cash and there's not much I can do about that.

This is perfectly legal to do in Europe, but it is tested annually as part of the vehicle safety and emissions test.

This seams to be a question of mentality. No one here in the UK has shown any horror at this idea. There are even companies who carry out these conversions professionally. I looked at these conversions and decided that I could do it better myself.

We have to allow our children to be exposed to some risks in order to make life possible. Otherwise they would never get into any car, or would never be allowed to play on the swings or slides or climbing frame at the playground.

Sadly, the wealthier you are, then the fewer risks you can expose your kids to. If you have enough money then:-

You can buy them their own seat on an airline instead of having them sit on your lap.
You can afford to take them to private specialists when they are ill and the National Health Service fails you.
You can buy a VW Sharan TDI or Transporter.

If you can't afford all of those things, what do you do?

I find it wierd that people in the US are so strange about this when (from what I understand) many of you still do not wear seat belts in a car, and when so many of you have guns in the house where kids can get them, or even let them play with them.

I really think that I am doing the best that I can with the resources that I have, and that is the best that I can do.

For example my wifes car has no airbags. I would really, really love to trade it and buy here a car with a drivers airbag. But the fact is tat she only drives 3000 miles per yea, and we just don't have the cash. What am I supposed to do?

Any donations towards "buy christi an VW Sharan TDI" gratefully received.

Thank you.

Hey Christi-
The American guy heard that most auto accidents happen within 5 miles from home-so he MOVED AWAY! (baddap ching!)

Personally as long as it's legal it looks pretty secure. Definatly a lot better than hoping in the pickup bed.

Maria needs a car seat,but otherwise that looks great. I've got an 89 Ply Voyager and that rear seat looks as or more secure than any seat in there!

Actually the photos are a little misrepresentative.

She sat in the seat for the photos, but when she actually goes on a journey, then yes I cram her car seat in there and strap it down to the bench.

It looks a mess so I didn't photo it that way

It doesn't solve the issue of crumple zones in a hard smash of course.

A Voyage probably does a bit better in a rear end smash than my hook up...

How did you make the seat belts?

how do they anchor?

Have you done any kind of testing to ensure that they will hold under the huge g-forces encountered in a collision? The seat itself looks sound- except for the plywood-- possible that a body in motion would go right thru the wood in a crash.....

The seat belts are out of an Peugeot I had that rusted away.

They are bolted to that great big aluminium side plate on each side, which in turn is bolted to the side rails that are bolted to the chassis of the car.

There is metal behind the plywood, so in order to go through the plywood, she would have to go through the metal behind the plywood.

Again the metal behind the plywood is bolted to those side plates.

The centre anchor point for the seat belt is then a steel plate that is attached to the metal that is behind the plywood...

You can't see all the metal as it is hidden underneath the cloth covering.

By the way those aluminium side plates are thick. They must be about 4mm thick metal.

This seat is probably stronger than my drivers seat. If you think about it the seat belt buckle on a drivers seat is mounted to the seat itself and not to the chassis. In a crash your weight attempts to pull the seat out of the car, and the runner doesn't look that strong to me...

[ May 08, 2001: Message edited by: christi ]

Christi,

I apologize if I came off too harsh. I'm still horrified, but like I said, I admire your ingenuity.
I realize that money doesn't grow on trees for most of us, and we have to make do. But I'd make my inlaws walk before I risked putting my daughter back there. As I think I mentioned, my 1995 Audi S6 wagon had a rear facing seat, but I would never put her back there.

As far as Americans and seatbelts/guns, I always wear my belt and I don't have a gun. Perhaps it's because I grew up in Europe?

Hey, no worries. This is the Internet.

Kind of made me realise what an enormous ego I must have. Of course if I do something and then post the pictures, everyone has to tell me how brilliant it is...

Interestingly I was passing a Volvo dealer yesterday, and there on the lot was a nearly new Volvo wagon (a V70 I think).

To my surprise it had a fold up bench seat in the load area.

Obviously it is better than mine in the sense that folds down into the floor when not in use; interesting given that Volvo is one of the most safety orientated makes that you can buy.

7 seater Volvo V70 TDI 140 bhp, hmm....

Christi -

When I first saw this thread, I said to myself that if Christi's done it, it'll be a properly-engineered job, albeit maybe not so aesthetically appealing as a munufacturer's setup, since you don't have access to the finisher mouldings etc.

No, Christi, it's not you who has the enormous ego, not one of which I've ever been aware, anyway, in my various correspondence with you where you have been very helpful and highly knowledgeable, but certain individuals in a nation somewhere to the south of where I'm now based, some of whom actively promote the idea of fuelling up their cars with the engine running ("I've got a diesel, I'm all right Jack, stuff the fact that some innocent also filling up on the same forecourt - with a gasser - sees what's going on and assumes he/she can do the same...", who have to drill holes 1960's-style in their trunk floors to fit hitches, and who claim unlimited knowledge of all small diesels and all of their detailed characteristics when the ONLY modern small diesel sold in their market in recent years has been the 1.9TDi, and even that in a version never sold in Europe, due to their crappy, not-even-fit-for-export-to-the-third-world diesel.

No, Christi, you ain't got nothing to worry about regarding an ego problem!

...And I emphasise that I'm not trying to besmirch all of the nation to which I refer, many of whom ARE extremely well-informed, just a handful whose ACTUAL knowledge is in inverse proportion to the size of THEIR egos!

To be fair though, I did call VW in Bracknell a year or so back and asked them whether they would be doing a "seat in the boot" like the Peugeot 406 Familiale, and as one had been available on the B3 or B4.

They claimed that they would not due to worries about children sitting in the rear crumple zone, and that I should go and buy a Sharan.

My logic is, that if it is safe in a Peugeot 406 or a Volvo V70, then why not a Passat?

But now we here that Saab say the same
My dad had a Saab 95 with folding seat in the boot back in the 70s.

Or maybe Saab can't be bothered to change the floorpan to have a different one to the sedan, and the safety argument is a convenient one.

I also found Jeremy Clarksons comments interesting about small MPVs in particular.

He was revueing the Opel / Vauxhall Zafira.

He said that the concept was brilliant, but that it worried him that rear seat passengers heads where just a couple of inches from the tailgate glass...

This is actually true of just about any MPV.

What is a family man to do?

Looks as though a Grand Voyage or Grand Espace is all that one can buy. These are the "stretched" MPVs that actually give you somewhere to put the luggage, and a crumple zone...

Just try parking the damn thing in a London parking meter bay.