CAR REVIEWS? GROUND CLEARANCE?

2011 auto/suv ground clearance update:

A NUMBER OF READERS HAVE ASKED WHAT I HAVE DONE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM:

I have really taken a long look at options and do NOT want to spend $50,000. My front wheel drive Town &Country

vanis useless in the winter time on steep and icey roads. Remember, I live at 9,000 feet. I need to trade it. We test drove some

cars and SUVs and have rented many cars in the past year. First prospect is

the Audi Q5. It is all wheel drive all the time, has about the same clearance

as my 4WD Escape which I like, and standard 18 inche tires...with ability to go to 20 inch, and optional larger tires,

gives you another few clearance inches. BUT...a big deal is the Audi patented

transmission which allows you to slap the gear stick and change from full automatic into

manual transmission with no clutch. Upshifting and downshifting is a big safety, fuel efficiency, brake saving and traction benefit

here in the mountains. For people who want to go to Europe, you can sac\ve about

five percent by picking up the medium sized SUV in Germany. We checked and

renting a comparable car on a Europe vacation is about 1,000 euros (today $1,283) per WEEK....

Other people like other vehicles and my Dodge Ram 4wd is still my clearance work horse. The Audi

is around $35,000 and the new 2.0 litre turbo actually generates more torque and almost the same horsepower

as the old  3.3 litre less fuel efficient engine...so, for now the full size pickups are

best  but a clearance solution might be the Q5.

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I am one of those few but growing number of Americans who actually lives in the outback where 4WD and AWD vehicles are mandatory. Years ago along with horsepower and body trim the truck and car manufacturers used to feature "ground clearance" as a normal statistic in brochures and advertising.

At the point where I was ready to give up after searching the Web, I finally spotted some good reviews of AWD nad 4WD models by Cars.com columnist Mike Hanley. But, alas, no grouoned clearance. So once again your Don Quiijote of the Cyberworld felt the need to send him this note:

Mike :

thanks for the good work but...I am puzzled... you and other auto writers seem to have now realized--what many of us in rural American know..that lack of AWD or 4WD options is often a deal killer in new and used car purchases--even, yes, above and beyond mileage...(estimates 27% of new sales are awd or 4wd and rising) Now...hang with me here...I doubt if am alone in the rather significant correlation (okay, not huge but significant) between people who want and need 4WD or at least AWD and issues of ground clearance. My wife and I seem to be in a perpetual state of vehicle shopping. We have now taken to looking UNDER the car first. We have learned ridiculous things. For example: the good looking and highly touted Toyota FJ seems to have a tailpipe and muffler configuration on one side that hangs down lower than the bottom of the differential. For 8 months of the year it would be scraping the mud, snow, and ice on our crowned driveway; the tiny Scion A (Xa?) which I don't believe is available in AWD when parked next to a Jeep Wrangler actually had a HIGHER ground clearance to my eye, with factory tires, than the Jeep. We have come close to leasing or buying an H3 simply on the ground clearance issue, but during a white out blizzard two years ago in Denver we noticed that our 4WD Ford Escape with the larger engine, 16 inch wheels, and studded mud-ice tires, cleared some areas where two Hummers were stuck in snow drifts....F 150s are good but not great....AWD Subaru sedans are really popular for highway snow and ice conditions up here, but when loaded with passengers have the usual clearance problems... So....how come auto writers never mention ground clearance? How come the spec summaries and even many of the sales brochures in the showroom never mention ground clearance? We get turning radius, headroom, cubic feet behind the driver's seat, 0 to 60 in X seconds...but no clearance... You would be doing many Americans a service if REGARDLESS OF PRICE AND MODEL you wrote about the trade off between clearance and stability, rollover issues, relationships of clearance and wheelbase, and the cars and trucks with standard tires (or those where larger tires will NOT void warrantees) when measured from the tippy tip of the differential housing bottom to a flat pavement have the highest center clearance.. whew...I feel better.....thanks Mark Scheinbaum chief investment strategist http://www.lf-financial.com/ near Angel Fire, NM at 9,000 feet