We found the seats in the 1999 Rodeo uncomfortable, but Isuzu has redesigned the front and rear seats for 2000 and the change is a good one. Without having old and new seats side by side it isn't possible to pinpoint exactly how the new ones are enhanced, but the seat bottoms seem bigger and deeper and are definitely for the better. Most of the controls are well placed and easy to operate, though the windshield wiper control took awhile to figure out.On the downside, interior passenger space, particularly headroom, is still limited for taller people. The Rodeo seats five, but rear-seat passengers best be children or short adults. The optional moonroof further lowers front headroom by an inch, which is a lot. People shorter than 6 feet should find headroom adequate, however. The Rodeo offers abundant cargo space, however; more than 81 cubic feet of cargo space is revealed with the rear seat is folded down. That tops other like-sized SUVs, particularly the Nissan Xterra (65.6 cubic feet). The Rodeo boasts slightly more space than the Ford Explorer and Toyota 4-Runner, which offer less than 80 cubic feet of cargo space. We dropped the back seat and loaded the cargo area with a mountain bike, a very large float tube (a giant truck inner tube encased in nylon with a backrest that sticks up about 2 feet on one side of the tube), a couple of fly rods, and some other miscellaneous fishing gear. The Rodeo swallowed all that gear with room to spare.
|