irenesbob

A good friend of mine recently asked me, as her "car expert", what the turning circle/radius of the 2017 Ford C-Max was. She had test driven the car, liked/accepted it for what is was and how it was priced (Ford is offering $2,650 cash back and 0% financing for 60 months with as little as $1,000 down). She had asked the dealer to research the turning circle, but they could not find anything in all the print and online information they have.
I spent quite some time on the web today looking for this metric and still have not been successful. In the process I reconfirmed for myself that there seems to be a resistance to metrics, either on the part of the auto and auto review culture or in our culture in general – I am not sure, maybe it is both.
I remember back 25 or 30 years I could check any of several print magazines (Car and Driver, Consumer Reports to name two) and find the length, width, height, wheelbase, f/r track, turning circle, trunk capacity, f/r headroom and legroom, fuel tank capacity and more for virtually any vehicle made. Today all the automobile reviews are very subjective telling us things like “the back seat feels tighter than in the.…”
I find these things really useless and as a result no longer subscribe to these "sources" (print or electronic). Even the manufacturers’ brochures and online listings of "specifications” are getting close to being useless in terms of figuring out whether a particular car is right for me by answering a simple question like “will I fit in the driver seat?” They focus on clever attention-grabbing graphics and the entertainment and other features that tell a potential buyer how cool they will be (or seem to be in) driving that car.
I yearn for the old days when numbers were readily available. I find this quite ironic, since the advent of computers, making possible automated printing and rapid reliable collection, manipulation and dissemination of data online so easy. End of rant.

gk1

?
2 seconds
https://www.google.com/search?q=2017...turning+circle

Perhaps it is not correct, but it certainly didn't take long to find.

I agree in principle that there seem to be less hard numbers in common sources, but they do seem to be out there.

irenesbob

Yeah, I never use Google as my search engine - I guess I should. I got hooked on Yahoo years ago and you can search those terms all day and get no relevant hits. I guess I overstated my rant, it is more the lack of full specs on corp websites and car rag annual issues that bothers me.

Fahrer

In the past, one could count on Car and Driver or Road & Track ( Consumer Reports, as well) to provide extensive details on cars tested or evaluated. The engineers have largely been replaced by writers. In addition, it costs money to do all of these measurements when apparently not many people care. More BMWs, Audis, M-Bs, Porsches, etc are sold today because of the badge on the trunk rather than how good it performs overall as a sports or luxury sedan. Similarly, the main stream brands appeal more because of the on-board electronics and styling rather than the overall functionality. Many folks don't even know how to change a tire today. Owner's manual? What's that for? I am getting old, I guess.

irenesbob

I got you beat, I am old and have been for a while. I see posts here and on other car blogs where people planning to get a new sport sedan are hesitant because of the limit on the number of contacts the phone function memory will handle. I have 11 numbers total in my still non-smart cell phone - mostly friends and relatives who might be in the position to find my corpse when I drop and one ICE number.
I have several grandchildren over 18 (the driving age here in NY) and not one of them has gotten a driver’s license, but all are constantly glued to their personal communication devices. To them being in a car is the same as being in the bus, Amtrak or Uber and having to drive that car would just be a bother and distract from texting. It is a changing world I guess.
When I was approaching driving age I had already memorized the NYS driver's manual and had practiced parallel parking with a toy car that had a steering wheel and moveable wheels. I would put a shoe box in front and one in back long the bedroom wall and practice getting into the space between them so I could get the concept down pat. Cars and driving were the biggest things in my life at that point and I don’t think I gave a minute a day to something like "staying in touch” with friends who were not near me. They were important, to be sure, but only when I was physically near them. Separation was a part of life - the car was the way to close that gap and to spend more time with friends. As always, parents were at best something one had to put up with as a teenager – that has not changed.

DB22

Irenesbob, I understand your point and I also think that the information is available for those that want it but most people have no idea how to interpret the data so the manufacturers gave up providing it. Ask 10 people if a 37 foot turning radius is good or bad, very few would have a clue. The car buying public mostly don't have a clue about technical issues and know even less on how to use it.

irenesbob

True - a 37' radius is a very good thing for me lol

Nakedhoof

There's an alternative, but you might not like it...

DB22

The most difficult metric to discover is the price: tv ads show a car, quote a price and in the fine print they state "model shown is higher". As we all know, the A6/S6 ranges between $43k and over a 100k and this is typical for the German upcharge. Magazines comment about a car, quote the base price and sometimes state as tested but that number is usually way less than a real out the door costs. I am a little biased because I only want a car with every option. This is because it keeps the car more current for longer plus I like toys. If I want a luxury sports sedan then I don't consider it luxury unless it has luxury car features.

Nakedhoof

The A6/S6 are performance cars. They have a certain degree of luxury included, but if you want a luxury car, then the A8L is your car. All cars are advertised with optional equipment shown. ALL CARS. Try figuring out how much a Corvette will be out the door, without visiting a dealer, and finding out what options are available. There is a certain amount of preloading for cars manufactured in other countries. Certain options, and packages, are presumed by the manufacturer to be the most desired, and they use prior year sales records to find out what those options are. I presume that they also use buyer panels and surveys, put together by marketing companies, and targeting potential buyers. You probably already know this, but I won't presume that anyone does. This is why cars sold in North America are generally very high optioned vehicles. Americans are presumed to want a lot of options, and they know the options we want, pretty much. Of course, if you take EU delivery, you can get anything you want more easily. Cars sold in the EU are often stripped down versions of what we get here, and you might be able to buy an A6 there for $30K USD, possibly even a touch less, but it's going to be a loss-leader, and might seem very spartan, by North American standards. IOW, steel wheels, instead of alloy. No chrome, or special trims, no quattro, sports packages, cloth seats, instead of leather. Et cetera

For the record, the A6 is more comparable to a BMW 7 series, IMO. I've been in the 5 series, and it's more akin to the A4 in size, especially rear seat legroom.