My smart is dead. True and well killed. I was taking a trip to California from Virginia in my 09 passion. When somewhere between Virginia and San Antonio the cap came off the coolant pressure tank. Not sure when or how anyone messed with it as I've been driving the car for 6 months with not an issue. The car slowly lost coolant but never gave me a symptom till it started pinging then a minute or two later lost power. Road service towed me to the San Antonio dealership, they said that the engine has seriously overheated and was done. The car needs a new engine. Since it was a cap that came off and not really a factory defect the failure is not covered by the warranty...... The estimate is over $7,000 for the repair. Lots of fun, plus I have to go back to San Antonio to pick it up after the new engine is installed. I'm kicking myself for not checking everything, oil, coolant, brake and washer fluid every morning prior to starting out.... damn. Lesson learned the hard way.
Since you don't make a habit of checking that stuff, it probably wasn't you that left it loose.
Talk to your selling/servicing dealer and then, if needed, the rep.
Man that is terrible. I would think an explanation is in order as to why you did not get an overheat warning. I do know that it doesn't take long to fry an engine with overheat and it is possible to miss a temp gauge reading if you are focused on the road as one might be on a cross country drive.
I would talk to your dealer also. You did not take the cap off, you did not get a high temp light, you did not get a low coolant light. You are getting the shaft though.
In 1972 when I was in college I had a similar incident with a Renault I owned while in a similar situation, I had the car towed 300 miles back to the dealer. The dealer felt that since the car had less than 10k on it there was no way I could be held at fault, Renault US gave the dealer permission to give me a new engine under warranty. I would hope smart US is more scrupulous than this.
There's no way to prove that you didn't touch the cap, but there is a way to prove that the temp light or sensor doesn't work. Verify that and your engine's covered under warranty.
That's exactly what the coolant warning light is for: A loose cap. A leak, anything that causes coolant to be lost - it's been that way for decades. If a simple mistake like a loose cap allows engine destruction without warning, something's not designed right and Smart USA needs to know all the details so they can verify temperature sensors at port, possibly issue a recall, etc. Sensors and warning lights have a purpose and they should live up to that purpose.
So if the temp sensor is faulty, it should fault indicating an error.
If no error was given, the sensor design is bad and indirectly caused the engine failure.
Time to call Dave Shembri? (poor guy)
If you drove 20 miles with an overtemp situation, it's your responsibility. If nothing was communicated because of a (terribly) bad sensor it makes sense to this non-lawyer that it's on the manufacturer.
It wasn't the engine that was bad, it was the $10 sensor that caused the $7k damage.
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