I had the same thoughts (that Cars would be a better location for us) before we stayed there. In fact, on our first stay we were booked in a Cars suite. When we got there to check-in, the Cars suite we had been assigned was in the far end of Building 2 (certainly not close to transportation like I had requested). My kids weren't happy that I had requested Cars to begin with (I thought that's what they would have preferred) so since we got a crappy (in my mind) room location in Cars, I asked if they had anything in *any* of the sections that would be closer to the food court and transportation. The CM did his little "click, click, click" thing on his computer and said, "I have the perfect room for you in the Lion King section." He was right. It was perfect.
The reason I choose LK over Cars when trying to be close to food/transportation is because the bus stops and food court are at the LK end of Animation Hall. All of the LK suites are between approximately 125-250 yards away from the center of the food court and 250-325 yards from the center of the bus stops. Only about 1/3 of the Cars suites are less than 250 yards from the food court...some of them are more than 400 yards and the longest walk to the middle of the bus stops is about 450 yards. Granted, that's still not horrible, but if you're making that trek a few times a day over a 7 or 8 day stay, it starts to add up. The good thing about AoA is that you can do most of that walking inside of air-conditioned buildings. If we were only going to be there a few days or if we didn't use the refillable mugs a lot (or at all), I'd be ok with a Cars suite, but based on the way we spend our days at Disney, unless we're in a suite at the end of Cars building 1 closest to Animation Hall, I would not be happy.
