Kerlaan

Kerlaan

Active Member
I shall be travelling to Hungary from NW France to collect a lot of household items. I am planning on removing the rear seats to make better use of the load space.

Is there a floor reinforcement panel in the commercial variant to distribute loads or is the floor robust in the 5 door Hippo enough as is? It looks okay to me. It is surprising how heavy plates, pots, pans and so on can be.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions.
 
The seats folded make a flat bed in the back, which i think is going to be much safer, and i doubt you will gain that much room because you will only be losing the footwell space the seats fold into?
 
I took the rear seats out of my old F1 for a bit, thinking it would give the dog (and me) a lot more space. In reality, it’s a right pain, as @Arctic2 says, you just gain the footwells, but of course it creates a big ‘gap’ between the bed of the rear and the front seats.

I soon put them back in.
 
Thanks @Arctic2 and @Freddie, I had them folded down last year when moving from Austria to Hungary, then back to France. I felt I would have a “flatter” and larger space but your comments have been helpful. I’m pondering on it all now 🤔.
 
Kerlaan said:
Thanks @Arctic2 and @Freddie, I had them folded down last year when moving from Austria to Hungary, then back to France. I felt I would have a “flatter” and larger space but your comments have been helpful. I’m pondering on it all now 🤔.
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Might be a silly question but did you roll them forward. Makes it quite flat.
 
…take them out and see if it suits your need - it’s a quick job, literally would take you 10 mins.
The footwell space might be good for you for your trip, especially if you have soft stuff that can use that space, then load flat across the top of everything.
 
Freddie17 said:
…take them out and see if it suits your need - it’s a quick job, literally would take you 10 mins.
The footwell space might be good for you for your trip, especially if you have soft stuff that can use that space, then load flat across the top of everything.
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You read my mind @Freddie17, but I was just probably being too cautious and overthinking it all.
 
mystery said:
a roof rack with a sheet of OSB will give you more room
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True but a few things that count against that for me, I don't have a roof rack and its household items that will need to be kept dry. I have a 2800km return and security is important, hence locked inside the hippo.
 
If you are interested, I can go and measure the dimensions (although mine is a 2001 FL1 Td4, not a facelift so maybe the centre console etc is not the same, so dimensions you would need wouldn’t be exactly same?) Not rocket science tho.
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I have converted my 5dr to a van and it's so practical for hauling large dogs of course but all kinds of stuff. The floor will handle heavy stuff. If you think about how much the rear seat and 2 or 3 persons + their stuff in the rear compartment weigh.

My current setup includes Variocage double XL cage and I still have floor space for lot's of stuff.
20250406_081733.jpg
 
If you need as much space as poss then take out the seats, get yourself some of those vac bags for soft stuff, they save a huge amount of space.

Dont forget you have to go back for your seats :).

J
 
marjon said:
If you need as much space as poss then take out the seats, get yourself some of those vac bags for soft stuff, they save a huge amount of space.

Dont forget you have to go back for your seats :).

J
Click to expand...
The vac bags are a good call - we have them somewhere (never used 🙄).

I think the OP is doing a ‘round trip’, as opposed to one way, but those seats are a pain to ‘store’!
 
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