Removing rear seat and spare tire?

[jasonck08]

So, I NEVER use the back seat in my camry. It's been a couple years since anyone sat back there. I was just thinking with gas pricing going up, If my car lost 100-200lbs, that could translate to a couple more MPG's along with better acceleration.

Anyone know the weight of the rear seat?

How about the weight of the spare tire?

How hard is it to remove the rear seat? Any instructions. Thanks!

[WhippinCamry]

I would like to know also. might keep the back seat though!. hahah
thats where i keep my car books. and tools.

[nopain00]

The rear seat doesn't weigh that much. It's two separate cushions--the back and the bottom. The metal underneath is part of the frame.

You could easily weigh the spare tire on a bathroom scale. It too doesn't weigh that much, I'd guess 20-30 lbs.

I think the estimate is about 2-3% MPG increase per 100 lb for a car this size. I'm not sure whether that's worth it.

[white90dx]

The rear seat is pretty light on Camrys without the folding rear seat (maybe 20# total).

The seat bottom cushion comes out by pulling the two tabs towards the front of the car and then lifting the front of the seat (you can do one side at a time).

On non-folding cars, the rear seatback is then held in by two 12mm bolts, and then the seat can just be lifted up over the top hooks.

On folding seat cars, there are more bolts, but they are easily seen and visible.

I think you will be surprised at how much louder the car is without the rear seats. You might get you 1 more mpg and a touch of accelleration.

-Charlie

[Sturdavj]

No question about it, increased road noise

“Back in the day” of rear wheel drive cars we would pull the rear seats, narrow the frame rails, and tub the wheel wells.

And it was loud, most of the noise was from the HP & pipes. But you would be amazed at how much noise follows you down the road, I think it might ( not sure) have something to do with the dead space created directly behind you car by the draft stream as push through the air

[brinton]

Charlie mentioned 2 tabs to pull to remove rear seat cusion. I have 2001 camray and don't see tabs. Any help? I want to remove cushio so I can tighten shockes which rattle

Brint

['88 All-Trac]

The 2001 Camry is significantly different from the 2nd gen we are talking about here. I recommend asking in the appropriate forum or perhaps pickup up a Chilton's manual for it- they're not perfect but for someone who is looking to do their own automotive work they are wonderful.

[greener]

I'm getting in the high 20's (27-29 mpg) in my '89. I don't think I'd see the mpg gain from removing the rear sear and spare if it is 2-3%. I believe it would be swallowed up by driving variability.

[oakshaun]

my biggest gain was just from slowing down, i did all highway i moved my windshield wipers down, i took em off painted and put them on at a lower angle below that little raise on the hood that way air wasn't catching on them. keep it clean will help too. i folded the mirror in and that got me 37.8 mpg with about 50 city miles but my highway miles, were at 53mph. in my mind it wasn't really worth all the "hypermiling" it was hard to do and it made my joints hurt because i wouldn't move my foot. but if your really into weight loss your speakers weigh alot more than you think, and wtf do you need a rear bumper for. back when gas was only $3 and you could pick up a camry for under a grand i was gonna buy another and totally strip it out like no air con. no power steering. and no interior, like none i was gonna take everything but the driver seat out i meant the whole dash and all. i was gonna replace the heater coil with just some hose, take out all the ac stuff and the powersteering pump and lines,
i was gonna take off the alternator too and just plug it up to a charger too. looking back, i'm kinda glad i didn't ruin a camry.

[Zembonez]

You'd have to lose a LOT more than a couple of hundred pounds to get a 1 mpg increase. Yanking the 20 pound back seat is going to increase noise levels a ton.

[tadashi]

removing the rear seat wouldn't be enough to do anything you'll notice...and removing the spare tire just isn't a good idea in any case. The cheapest modification you can do to reduce the weight of the car is to lose weight yourself. I knew a near 300 lb guy who would track his car and he didn't like that advice to lose weight if he wanted to do easy weight reduction.

[oakshaun]

Originally Posted by tadashi

removing the rear seat wouldn't be enough to do anything you'll notice...and removing the spare tire just isn't a good idea in any case. The cheapest modification you can do to reduce the weight of the car is to lose weight yourself. I knew a near 300 lb guy who would track his car and he didn't like that advice to lose weight if he wanted to do easy weight reduction.

lol yeah, i weighed about 285 and gas mileage was my final motivator, lol