Turning circle of an oil tanker
Discussion
Have driven two cars with frankly awful turning circles, the last gen focus St and an alfa GTV. The alfa was so bad I once had to make a seven point turn on a normal size road, combined with a heavy clutch ended up with cramp in my clutch leg!
What other "normal" cars suffer from the same problem? Rose tinted glasses make me think my old mx5 could turn round like a London taxi so maybe been spoilt but reverse parking both the St and gtv in car parks was a joke...
What other "normal" cars suffer from the same problem? Rose tinted glasses make me think my old mx5 could turn round like a London taxi so maybe been spoilt but reverse parking both the St and gtv in car parks was a joke...
RWD cars will all turn in their own length if you use enough throttle. 
Seriously though, turning circle is one of the compromises of transverse FWD - the engine is very wide in comparison to the width of the car, and it's in a position to impinge on the wheelarches, so you can't have much lock if you want big wheels and a reasonably narrow track.
Seriously though, turning circle is one of the compromises of transverse FWD - the engine is very wide in comparison to the width of the car, and it's in a position to impinge on the wheelarches, so you can't have much lock if you want big wheels and a reasonably narrow track.
t. davepoth said:
RWD cars will all turn in their own length if you use enough throttle.
Seriously though, turning circle is one of the compromises of transverse FWD - the engine is very wide in comparison to the width of the car, and it's in a position to impinge on the wheelarches, so you can't have much lock if you want big wheels and a reasonably narrow track.
I don't think it's just transverse FWD that's the problem, it's FWD of any sort because there's a limit to the angle a CV joint will manage.Seriously though, turning circle is one of the compromises of transverse FWD - the engine is very wide in comparison to the width of the car, and it's in a position to impinge on the wheelarches, so you can't have much lock if you want big wheels and a reasonably narrow track.
Baryonyx said:
First generation Volvo S60's had a terrible turning circle as a result of shoehorning the five cylinder into the front.
Seconded... although oddly, the five cylinder S40 is fine, and in fact pretty tight for a transverse FWD of its size despite being a narrower car.Classic steering box rear drivers are where it's at for unfeasibly tight turning circles, though. I remember making an onlooker boggle with amazement taking 5m of Vauxhall Omega round a mini-roundabout in an unbroken U-ey... the roundabout being not all that much wider across than the length of the car.
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