That's what I thought as I flipped a u-turn on the way home last night. It was a standard width street, yet I barely had enough room to clear one of the cars already parked on the curb. I wondered how a compact coupe could make a street feel narrow, I mean it doesn't really get much smaller than this Focus right?
I decided to check the numbers to see how the Focus stacks up in the turning radius department. Turns out I was wrong, or imagining things, or not turning to full lock quickly enough.
According to Edmunds.com statistics, the turning radius of the Focus coupe is a very admirable 34.2 feet. Compare that to the Honda Fit (34.4 ft.) or Honda Civic coupe (35.4 ft.), and the Focus cuts a pretty tight circle. The only car I could find off hand with a tighter circle is the Chevrolet Cobalt coupe at 33.5 feet. And if it's between those two, I'd take the Focus.
Ed Hellwig, Senior Editor, Inside Line @ 25,041 miles
vvk says:
01:30 PM, 07/30/09
You don't have to go very far: Ford Mustang has turning radius of 33.4 ft. In general, anything with short wheelbase and RWD will have a relatively short turning radius.
smart: 28.7 :-)
Miata: 30.8
Lotus Elise: 32.8
Mercedes SLK: 34.5
Jeep Wrangler: 34.9
Yaris 2-door (FWD): 30.8
firstwagon says:
01:54 PM, 07/30/09
You don't need always even need rwd. My 91 Legacy wagon has a turning circle of 33.5 ft.
I can't see buying either the Focus or Cobalt as a coupe but as a rental sedan I liked the Cobalt better. It seemed to have a better handle on it's role as basic transportation for those don't want anything more (or didn't test drive any other cars).
lysine says:
02:50 PM, 07/30/09
Haha. I went from 34.1 in my 2005 Mazda 3 to 38.7 in the EVO X MR.
It's sooo bad in the Evo.
carfreak8394 says:
03:55 PM, 07/30/09
Off topic, but isn't the Buick Lucerne's turning circle like 42 feet or something like that?
carlisimo says:
07:07 PM, 07/30/09
The Miata's is 30.x ft... well, wk posted it above, but previous generations were about the same, maybe a few tenths less. The Mazdaspeed was in the 35 ft range though, because of its wider tires.
But 34.2 ft is great for a FWD car. They're narrow tires, I guess.
Acura's the worst - the RSX and TSX were/are pretty bad at tight turns unless you do something silly. For some reason, those French mid-engined RWD hatchbacks (where they've taken out the rear seats to put a V6 in the back) tend to have terrible turning circles too.
greenpony says:
02:48 AM, 07/31/09
I never had a problem with the Focus' turning radius..
otaku says:
08:31 PM, 07/31/09
firstwagon, where I disagree with you is that I believe that the redesigned Focus has a very good handle on it's role as basic transportation for those who DO want something more than basic, but like myself, don't have the extra money to spend.