I received an email this morning from Kim McGill, smartUSA Vice President Marketing & Advertising.
She will be in Orlando at the Anniversary Event and is willing to answer your questions as best she can. She has asked for a list of questions and I will send these to her, then will answer them in Orlando. I will post the responses over the weekend.
In the posts following this, please list only your question(s) and enough detail if needed to assure the question is understood.
It is okay to post duplicates or "+1" a previous question, so that way we can tell which questions are the most concerning to the owners and to get a priority answer.
I am leaving for Orlando Thursday evening around 5PM, so that is your deadline as I need to get these to Kim as I am leaving. She can review them on Friday before she comes down.
1. Will M-B USA take over administration of extended warranties?
2. Will smart parts and accessories be available for order through all M-B USA dealers or only from those actually selling the smart?
3. Are there any plans to import 451-based powerplants such as the diesel, mhd or 84 hp turbo engine?
4. Will VIN related service data be transferred to the M-B USA computer database? In other words, will M-B USA get info on VIN specific open service issues such as heater blower motors, crazed Pano roofs, shifter problems, etc?
That is an excellent question; also, Mercedes allows US owners free access to their Electronic Parts Catalog (EPC) - will that be extended to smart owners as well and will the EPC include smart parts?
Just a note here - though I may be wrong (it has happened once or twice before), Kim is unlikely to be privy to MB future plans for the smart, as MB may or may not have solid future plans. So don't get your hopes up on answers from Kim about the future distribution plans by MB for smart. but it doesn't hurt to ask, I suppose.
Just a note here - though I may be wrong (it has happened once or twice before), Kim is unlikely to be privy to MB future plans for the smart, as MB may or may not have solid future plans. So don't get your hopes up on answers from Kim about the future distribution plans by MB for smart. but it doesn't hurt to ask, I suppose.
Of course, but you must be satisfied with a MANUAL shift 6-speed with clutch pedal on the floor.
All crazed roofs will be replaced with the latest in high tech plastic with the option of a sun roof.
In the interest of fast tracking the MB training for non-smart dealers, all work must be done by a MB dealer who has no smart experience and is at least 400 miles from your home.
Wait, no it has not begun to snow in H*ll nor do I see any pigs flying . . .
This Forum is awash with lots of speculation and very few facts. Sadly, while the owner community is very passionate toward their smart, that passion has not been shared by many smart Centers, smartUSA nor MB.
How sad that the Third Annual Anniversary event in Orlando is being sponsored by one of the most supportive smart Center Franchisees in the U.S. who may soon be out of business.
At the end of the day, just as our smart purchase was just another car deal, this is just another business deal and smartUSA/MB really don't care what the current owners think or want.
As of February 14, 2011 it's all about what is good for MB and FUTURE smart sales - pure speculation on my part . . .
1. As Jill stated in the press, the smart owners are passionate. As negotiations progress between smartUSA and MB-USA, is there a way for owner representation to be included when the topics are focused on the owners' loyalty; especially gaining and maintaining that loyalty while retaining the passion the smart?
2. Will there be plans for a smart gear store, separate or with MB gear?
3. Can the parts for a smart be ordered from any MB dealership, even if they are not selling the smart at the time?
Most of you were not around and on this site back in the year leading from initial reservation day in March of 2007 to 1st Deliveries in Jan of 2008 but a few of us old timers were around and we had thousands of similar questions essentially NONE OF WHICH WERE ANSWERED prior to delivery of the initial several hundred cars.
I think we are all in a similar situation now. I don't expect that Kim will be able to speak to what will now be MB issues so it is fine to ask but I wouldn't get expectations very high for any meaningful answers.
I also would be very slow to drink the Kool-aid offered by MB at this point. Again speculation is a wonderful thing but has little to do with reality. I would hope that MB is serious about taking over and growing the smart brand in the USA but I think the transition could be very good for the brand but could also turn out to be not so much!!!! It is simply too early to tell and I can almost assure you that answers to many of the questions you have posted will not be answered for several months in a definitive manner outside of the issue of # of dealerships handling the smart car which will likely get settled reasonably quickly.
Just as an aside there are questions about the availability of a smart gear store? There already is one....in my opinion the offering and designs are poor but it should be noted that the gear selection has always been done by the Euro's, smartUSA was not allowed to design gear for the US market, they were required to use what was already in place for Europe. I don't know why this would change unfortunately.
Not trying to rain on anyone's parade. Back in 2007 we early adopters went through the same uncertainties and heard all kinds of similar speculation almost none of which were answered in a timely fashion and very little of the speculation turned out to be true.
We will likely need to wait and see.........painful but likely!
Had our smart at a Penske smartcenter yesterday (front brake time), and asked an employee about the M-B transition. She said all the standalone stores are closing and that, for the Bay Area, the only place to bring a smart will be the San Francisco center (the smart center their shares a building with a M-B dealership). She said the transition will happen in June and that when it's over, there'll be 54 places nationwide to bring a smart for service.
Now, they might not have all the information about M-B's plans beyond June, so my question is: Will I be able to bring my smart for service to any (read South Bay) M-B dealer?
1. Will all the Mercedes Dealers be stocking parts for the Smart for two and will they be able to service the car in any dealership, not just where there is a Smart center?
2. Will they allow all independent Mercedes repair shops access to the Smart service manuals and the training needed to work on these cars? This car has been on the roads for three years don't they think it is time for other shops to be trained up on this car?
3. Will the customer service be stronger now that MB is handling the Smart for Two?
The minimum computer specifications to run the CDs are as follows: Pentium II 450 MHz processor or equivalent, Windows 2000/XP, 128 MB RAM, 8X CD-ROM drive, 16-bit color display at 800 x 600 pixels, Sound Blaster compatible sound card, and Internet Web browser 4.0.
In addition, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader and Shockwave Flash! plug-ins on your computer for these to function. Please note that you may have trouble viewing .pdf documents using Adobe Acrobat 7 Reader.
Jeez, only supporting Windoze is kinda expected, but they could go to the trouble of naming Internet Explorer (exploder?) correctly...
...And that bit about "Adobe Acrobat 7 Reader" [sic] - shouldn't they have fixed any problems with 7 by this time?
The free version of Adobe Reader hasn't been called "Acrobat Reader" for some time... do they require an older version? (Not just a joke; I've run into some junk like that, and it really screwed things up for the rest of the computer...)
"Shockwave Flash"... ? While that is still an official name, I don't recall that it's been widely used since Adobe bought Macromedia in 2005.
NOTHING OFFICIALLY WORKS WITH THE LATEST VERSION OF WINDOWS?!?
THE LATEST MODEL YEAR THERE IS 2008!?!?!
"Sound Blaster compatible"... DIDN'T WINDOZE 95 STANDARDIZE PROGRAMMING FOR SOUND AND MAKE THAT IRRELEVANT?
ninety @#$%!ing five...
:smilie_barf:
This site is an official M-B job, and it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. In fact, I must say that I hold M-B in notably lower regard for having seen that page...
I think this is the best possible thing that could happen for those of us that have smarts. Now that Mercedes will handle distribution I truly believe that more of them will show up on the street because dealers will feel better about the support network and be more inclined to carry the cars. Since they won't have to have smart only sales floors this opens up a lot of possbilities. smarts are all over the place in Europe, there is no reason they can't be in the US.
I'm collecting them. The Anniversary agenda did not give any time for Kim to talk to the group, but I did get some time to talk with her and Dan. More questions than answers this early on, which is not new and already acknowledged.
Before I can post, I have to confirm the post wording with Kim. I'll be on the road all day tomorrow. I'll post as soon as possible. PM me if there is anything pressing.
The questions were received at smartUSA and the response for today is
"Details about the transition will be coming together in the next week or two, so we do not have answers to most questions at this time."
Good discussion, but nothing that can be posted for accuracy. Still too much speculation until decisions are made and finalized. I'd rather wait and have the bottom line than to speculate and then it change.
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