Not so Smart

[louiecdaniel]

Consumer Reports describes the Smart Car as not so smart. At first thrilled to have my little car, one year later I am feeling, as Consumer Reports described, not so smart. The car is now in the shop for the 5th time in 7 weeks with transmission issues. The car has always been rough riding, but now it shifts, all by itself...while driving, out of automatic mode and into manual...sticking in first gear. After pulling over to the side of the road and jiggling the shifter, the car will eventually fall back into automatic, and you can drive again. It may not do this again for days, but when it happens, it's scary...especially when big trucks are following quickly behind you. The first three times in the shop were for gear shifting issues. Two of those times left me stranded and the car had to be towed into the dealer. Smart Car does refund deposits.

[mike-in-sa]

Man, I am sorry you got a bad smart. We own 2. Both for over a year now and no problems at all.

[Duckhunter]

Sorry to hear about your issues. No car is 100% defect free but I have had no problems with mine for eight months.

[jwight]

All I can recommend is checking out the Florida Lemon Law and proceeding from there. Unfortunately, it sounds like your car may qualify. Good luck.

[mvaldes]

That's really bad news. They're not all like that - I've had mine for about a year with no problems other than a faulty alarm sensor that was replaced the first week. Hope you get it sorted out satisfactorily, I'd hate to see you loose out on the fun of driving and tinkering with a Smart.

[SubSlr88]

Nearly nine months now - not a single problem. Sorry to hear of yours however. Keep after the dealer to get it fixed correctly. If they can't, have them escalate it to someone who can . . .
Good luck~!

[Peter I.]

Hm, unfortunately I don´t understand the issue completely. Wasn´t it possible to go further using the manual mode (tiptronic) of the transmission?

Personally I don´t use the automatic mode at all, because it makes the car to consume more fuel. You should note, that we´ve to pay here in Europe at the moment 5,92 USD for the gallon (Benzin).

Peter

[Earlsworkshop]

Sorry to hear of your Smart woes. I've just turned 11,000 miles on my 08 Coupe with no issues.
I installed a MisterDotCom cruise control about 7K miles ago. Sometimes if I don't turn the cruise off before I start up a steep grade, the cruise tries to go full throttle and downshift and that causes the warning light to come on and I lose throttle control. I have to pull over, shut off the engine, wait 20 seconds and restart the engine at least twice to reset the warning light. I also have a ScanMasterII and I've scanned the ECU and there has never been any codes recorded.
I also installed a Doug Thorley Cat-Back exhaust with twin pipes and I love the sound and slight increase in performance. But, the steel support rod that is welded directly to the exhaust pipe cracked out and left a hole in the pipe.
Nuisances, but nothing that I can't fix and they were modifications that I made to the Smart car.

[SmartAzz]

lemon law

[jimvw57]

Sounds more like a dealer issue than a Smart issue. 5 times in 7 weeks?? Something does not sound right there. Hopefully they have SmartUSA involved, if not, they need to be. I would have thought they would be notified after the 2nd or 3rd time in for the same problem.