[Carma2017]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Most of these vehicles anyway are not really 5 seaters. They are most comfortable for everyone, as 4 seaters.

Carrying no more than 4 people including the driver, makes for a far more comfortable and balanced drive experience, hence I never ever use the vehicle as a 5 seater.

...

There is a reason why Maruti dropped this feature from India centric cars.As someone rightly pointed out, sliding rear seats is a great feature and the impact per car is hardly 5000-6000. At max.The problem is to achy that the car has to be made 4 seater. The initial Wagon-R had the split rear airplane type seat.But Hyundai mercilessly branded the same to be a 4 seater against Santro's 5 seater bench seats.And Hyundai gained sales as well.This happened even though studies still show that 90-95% of usage of a car is as a 1-2 seater. But more importantly studies also show, that for Indian customers, seating to specified maximum limit is very high on priority list. Based on this learning , Maruti stopped giving Split rear seats and with that ended any chance of rear sliding seats.
By the way, sliding rear seats is present in all small cars Suzuki sells in Japan , even Alto.
Till the time the customer matured enough to understand the cost-benefit factor, we have no hope of getting it for India.

[MHG]

I'm cramped out whenever I travel in a bus (local, sleeper, "luxury" or otherwise), a side berth in a train, any economy class airplane, an autorickshaw or an average Indian car (with very few exceptions).

With the exception of the Suzuki GS150R (discontinued) and the Hero Impulse (soon to be discontinued) no Indian motorcycle is comfortable for me to ride.

I find most coffee/dining tables too low down for comfort and have probably never had a laptop at a good viewing angle.

But the status quo isn't changing for a while. It probably will when either a few generations pass and the average Indian has as long legs as I do or more efficient transport/furniture is invented and becomes mainstream, whichever comes first - both unlikely in my own lifetime! It simply isn't profitable to cater to people like me. That's majority economics!

[GTO]

Well, in regular hatchbacks & sedans, the rear seat is already pushed as far back as possible. Design engineers spend months in trying to squeeze out every centimeter of usable space in modern cars with swoopy C-pillars.

It's possible in UVs, which is why nearly all the high-end ones offering middle-row seats with fore & aft / backrest adjustment.

Good thing is, manufacturers are realising the importance of cabin space over boot space. In so many cars launched over the last 3 - 4 years (including Marutis), you'll see priority being given to cabin space over boot capacity.

[silverado]

Originally Posted by Tamarind

Say for example: Suzuki Ignis which is sold in western, has this feature but the ones sold in INDIA doesn't !

The slider feature in IGNIS does not help in increasing legroom, instead it helps in increasing boot space. IGNIS sold outside has rear seat divided in two parts which slide individually in direction of front seat.

So if max legroom is what you are looking for in IGNIS, I assume its at the limit in Indian IGNIS.

[Mr.Boss]

Like others mentioned, the major stopping point is Packaging
- Rear floor is higher than the front (boot is further higher in most cases) making it bit complicated to have a sliding structure
- Adding sliders below the seat base will increase the H-Point by another 1 inch (at-least & approx) which affects the Head room
- Split seat + slider needs additional space between both pieces which makes it a 2 seater rather than 3 seater
- Cost saving
- To escape from NVH issues