My '97 Taurus came with the cargo shade on a roll. Very tightly wound and taught when in place, I've rarely ever used it. Usually what I'm doing is yanking it out of the car and laying it behind the front seats on the floorboards so I can flatten the back seats to increase the cargo area (for my lawn tools). As mentioned previously, although the shade LOOKS nice and clean when in place, it cuts the available volume into a low-profile, mostly unusable space. It would be fine to cover something uniform like a bunch of books. I'm not even sure it could cover groceries without striking something tall - like a 1-liter bottle of soda!
But speaking of cargo areas, before I settled on the Equinox over the Traverse, I had to do my famous "luggage test" on the cargo hold of an Equinox sitting on a local dealer's lot. This is where I take my standard family luggage to the dealership (plus any unusual items like my son's bass) and ask to fit them into the cargo area to see how (if) they fit. So far, my luggage set has been used successfully in both my Taurus (standing vertically) then my Impala (laying flat in the trunk). When I tested it in the Equinox, it became clear that some of the items would sit higher than the rear seatbacks (which is an obvious problem), and the bass would require the back seat to be moved forward most of the way.
My plan with the luggage set was (is) to anchor some kind of heavy netting (or anchorable tarp) back there to keep anything above the seatbacks from flying forward during any sudden stops.
Has anybody done anything like this with their Equinox? It LOOKS like there are two sets of anchor points of some kind back there that could be used (although they might not be intended for the purpose I have in mind).
