Done with smart

[SmartJoeMN]

I was told by my dealer that the EXTENDED warranty covered rental car, but the factory 2/24k does NOT give you a car while they fix yours.

[Smartdavis]

I would rather own a Smart than a Saturn right now. At least we can still get parts and service regardless of whether we are in our out of warranty. Imagine what a used Saturn is going to sell for now?

[forestacademy]

Originally Posted by Smartdavis

I would rather own a Smart than a Saturn right now. At least we can still get parts and service regardless of whether we are in our out of warranty. Imagine what a used Saturn is going to sell for now?

Why, Saturn has been nothing but a GM clone outlet for a few years now. Any GM dealer has the same parts in stock.

[mdfortwoguy]

Originally Posted by Smartdavis

I would rather own a Smart than a Saturn right now. At least we can still get parts and service regardless of whether we are in our out of warranty. Imagine what a used Saturn is going to sell for now?

<--- From an owner of both a Saturn and a smart, a past Saturn dealer employee, and someone who has been involved in that communuty since 2002.

Saturn's resale has been in the tank for years. They make some great cars, however they were hobbled by lackluster marketing and an underserved reputation that GM never tried to fix.

They let the S series cars last until they were way long in the tooth (and were forced into having to kill the line for emissions concerns from the 1.9 liter powerplants). They replaced it with the ION, which was too radical of a change and quite frankly was a boring and cheap feeling car. They replaced it with the Astra, which is a fantastic car but lacks the power Americans think they need, and it is far too European in the controls (far be it for most buyers to read the manual...)

The L series cars were unreliable and not marketed very well...

The VUE was a cash cow from the start for them, but they replaced it with the Steel-bodied '08 redesign that is built in Mexico and lost a ton of repeat customers for a myriad of reasons besides that... all in all, another poor decision.

I'm personally not worried - I love my VUE, but it was built on the first week of VUE production - it's old and has a lot of miles on it, so it is not worth much to begin with. Parts issues are not of a concern - GM has to provide parts for 10 years legally, and there are always salvage yards.

[mdfortwoguy]

Originally Posted by SmartJoeMN

I was told by my dealer that the EXTENDED warranty covered rental car, but the factory 2/24k does NOT give you a car while they fix yours.

It depends on the dealer. My dealer gives you a loaner if my car has to go in.

[sbmear]

if you still want to sell it let me know

[psimac]

First I want to thank (one more time) Dunerunner and I'll tell you why in a minute.

I also really appreciate the comments of those who understood my situation and those who said they "understood how I felt at that moment." Those comments helped keep me rational.


And now the story...

As I said in my original post, I was probably more frustrated with smart's lack of response than the actual problem. The issue was that the car was 50+ miles away from the closest dealer and I didn't see paying another $150 or so to tow it to the dealer if they weren't going to subsidize the repair in any way, in addition to paying their higher labor rate.

smart was unresponsive for about a week with numerous phone calls made to the company--albeit in a rational tone (unlike some of you eluded to--yes, I'm looking at you Mud Pie). Finally, fed up with smart, I turned to the community--you people--and found a gem of information from Dunerunner.

He posted David Schembri's email addy and phone number. Being up on the car biz, I knew he was the president of smart USA. I thought, "what the hell?" and wrote him a pithy email on a Friday night at 6PM Pacific. I must say I was duly impressed when I spied a response from him in my iPhone at 7:30PM.

On Monday morning, the head of smart service contacted me and informed me that the fuel pump is actually listed as part of the emission's system. In the state where the car lives, California, the emission system is guaranteed for 7 years or 70,000 miles. He couldn't make any promises at that point, but armed with this new information, I was hopeful. He also apologized for their customer service's lack of timely follow-through.

The local service rep was contacted, who in turn contacted Walter's Smart Center of Riverside. The car was towed there on my dime. Walter's came to the same conclusion as my local service people (who are, btw, the only certified Dinan shop in Riverside county, for those of you with BMWs) and reported to smart usa that the fuel pump had indeed failed.

I picked up the car Saturday and paid $0.

So you guys/gals who said I should man up would have just laid down and paid. Apparently, yawl are wealthier than me--I work for a living and every dollar is important. It was worth the fight.

Smart was great after I finally got in contact with THEM and not their 3rd part customer support. Because of their lack of follow-through, I ended up paying a couple hundred for rental car and extra towing, but I still saved over $450 versus having my local shop install the part.

And I need to make one correction: the part was not 2-weeks out--it was 2-days out, however the shop mentioned it could be more than 2-days, if it was sold, as it was the only one left in the area.

So the squeaky wheel does get greased! Am I still selling the car? Probably, but not because of this situation. We just decided that we are moving and we'll need two four-seaters and there's no room for three cars at the new house.

Thanks again for the feedback--this was a great thread!

[jimvw57]

I too contacted Dave Schembri with an issue and he handled it in a quite timely mannor. It is too bad when you have to go all the way to the top to get someone to listen, but you do what you have to. Glad you got the problem resolved. I hope all goes well with your move!

[psimac]

I want all of you to know that my last post was edited quite considerably. I poked fun at the people that said some pretty strong things to me about how I should just pay and get on with my life.

I think moderators are overstepping their bounds when the begin to edit content that contained no curse words and no defamatory content. It's too bad, because this is a fun forum, but for someone to edit my post that severely and take out the true vapor of the point I was trying to get across is just plain wrong.

The moderator in question was also one of the people who was against my stance on this subject and who fun was being poked at. Certainly, if you're going to have people moderating, no, EDITING posts, they should be people who have no investment with the thread.

What do you people think?

[fpage77]

Originally Posted by psimac

What do you people think?

I think you telling people to go "do" things to themselves (not repeating the wording you used) was out of line. That's why you got edited and why "I" reported you!