2020 VW Passat Driveway Test Video | Stretching out in the jumbo back seat

One of the main reasons to continue considering midsize sedans like the 2020 Volkswagen Passat is their back seats. On paper, they may seem to have as much legroom as many SUVs, but there’s some fudge in those numbers. You see, a taller vehicle like an SUV achieves its legroom in large part by raising the seat bottom, which lets your legs hang down as if in a chair. The seating rows can therefore be closer together. By contrast, a car’s seat is lower, requiring extra seat cushion length and a more stretched-out, dentists’ chair leg position. As such, a car needs more distance between the front and back seatbacks. In other words, you get the same legroom on paper, but it’s achieved in different ways. 

For adults, this doesn’t matter that much as long as your legs fit and you’re comfortable. But for rear-facing child seats, this extra distance between seats can be the difference between mom and dad being comfortable up front or crammed up against the dash. In this way, a sedan or wagon can be a better bet for recent parents than a compact SUV. 

Now, among midsize sedans, only the Honda Accord has more back seat legroom than the 2020 VW Passat’s 39.1 inches. It’s an amount of space you can clearly see in photos and in the video above, which delves more deeply into the Passat back seat’s space, features content and materials quality.