A tumble-under, flat-folding 3rd row seat is a must have for minivans in today's market, with Chrysler's sales leading Caravan/Town & Country duo struggling recently due to noncompliance. The Quest's rearmost seat folds down easily, finalizing in a perfectly flat load floor. Getting it back into position, mind you, takes a heavy hand. Unlike Toyota's new Sienna, which splits the rear seat offering more flexibility and lighter individual seats for pulling back into position, the Quest seat is much heavier.
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| On top of the flat-folding rear seats, the Quest's middle row of seats fold almost completely flat too. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
What impressed thoroughly though, was the fact that the middle row of seats folded almost completely flat too. This is achieved by dropping the floor in the front of the van lower than the raised, theater style 3rd row seat, so when the middle row folds down it's fairly flush to the rear cargo area. While Toyota also offers folding middle seats, Nissan has done a better job here, offering a flatter loading floor.
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| The awkward position of the CD player is one of the ergonomically unfriendly features of the Quest, the other being the very odd and hard to use placement of the DVD system. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
There were only a couple of ergonomically unfriendly features, the first being the CD player positioned partway down the negative sloping cylindrical center stack, very cool for appearance purposes but probably not the most practical in application.
The second problem, and most grievous by far, was the awkward placement of the optional DVD changer. Positioned under the passenger's seat and facing the driver's seat, it was very difficult to reach. While on the road, the passenger would have to undo the seatbelt, crouch down with head bent below the seat and read the various buttons, which would now be shown upside down just to make the job more challenging. This would all work, however uncomfortably, only if your passenger doesn't have any physical limitations. It's almost as difficult for the driver to access, with the need to pull over for safeties sake. With respect to a van that does most everything better than its competitors, an afterthought DVD system seems very out of place. With all due respect Nissan includes a remote control unit, but in my experience remotes often get misplaced when needed most making manual accessibility a must.