Received my new red/black Passion on Saturday and I am delighted with the car.
It turns heads that's for sure. The general public would not recognize another exotic vehicle as much that costs ten times more
I believe I've mastered the engine/transmission relationship. At this time I'm running only on automatic. When the car wants to shift to the next gear I back off on the gas pedal a bit and then accelerate moderately. I do this by listening to the engine. It is as if I am shifting comfortably with a clutch but there is none. I suppose a tach would make this more fool-proof however.
In addition to using the auto mode for comfort, I am also concerned about bringing the RPM from climbing to high until the engine has seen a 1000 miles.
0-60 mph here may be a long arrival time, yet at stop lights this car in no slouch off the line. I surprise myself evertime at the speed it attains in regular city driving.
Before I got the car I had visions of being swallowed up by a large truck. Not so.
I have several minor issues on the car-
1) On the smart car tour it was implied that a parcel retaining net would be included.
2) I firmly believed that the <smart radio 9> on the Passion would have the RDS feature. This makes it possible to see the song/artist displayed on the screen or station identification, in addition CD's also have contents displayed on some RDS radios. My AUDI has RDS and it works well. As a matter of fact in Germany I saw an AMBER ALERT shown on the display of my rental car. In the Radio Instruction Booklet , it states in small <1's> Not applicable in the US . What gives? Is that reserved for Mexican or Canadian 451's? Then why is the booklet on page 7 dedicated only to FCC rules? There is nothing mentioned in the booklet about the United Kingdom, Australia or any other English speaking country government laws. I believe this booklet is dedicated to US buyers only and that the smart car bean counters decided to cut corners and have scratched the RDS feature. I like RDS and am disappointed about this. Can one do anything about this so heads will roll?
Linear Mode
