ease of removing middle seat of 2nd row bench?

[zim2dive]

I believe this is straight-forward on the Expedition, but I had a service manager tell me that on the Explorer, in order to remove the 2nd row middle seat (for the bench version), it would be 45+ minutes for someone who knew what they were doing.. and longer for the home DIY'er... the claim was that to remove the middle seat, one would need to 1st remove one of the outside seats.

I have 3 kids in car seats and would like to convert to poor-mans-captains-chairs for most of the time (easiest access to 3rd row for kids), but then re-install the 2nd row middle for trips (to provide more packing room)

thanks!

 

[peterk9]

Welcome to the Forum.
I don't believe that anyone has done this yet. I would think that it is very likely an outside seat would have to be removed to get at the middle seat anchoring points.
When you order the bench seat, all they do is install a center seat. Do the two outside seats still have inboard armrests with the middle seat there?

Peter

 

[zim2dive]

I agree that the "bench" upgrade does appear to just be the installation of a 3rd seat (and I think the lack of installation of the armrests)... here are 2 pics from the dealer website

https://d2v1gjawtegg5z.cloudfront.net/photos/images/244/114/411/full/image-26.jpg?1570534237
https://d2v1gjawtegg5z.cloudfront.net/photos/images/250/287/527/full/image-18.jpg?1574310556

The REAR bolts for the 2nd/middle seat appear to be easy to access.. (ie. there is a plastic access port, where I am guessing the rear bolts live)... but when we peeked under the seat it was NOT obvious how the front was secured, nor how to access.

For completeness sake, on the Expedition, people claim you can order the captain's chairs version of the mats, and use those when the middle is removed, and based on comparing the 2nd row of bench and captains on the Explorer, I suspect that is still true.. again, it's just a question of the practicality of removing/re-installing the seat 2-3x/year.