My Car Won't Start! [3 lines thru "P"]

[chieftmc]

NO no rental It's up to each individual dealer and MOST do not

[randyzimmer]

The "three bars of death" problem happened to my car a couple weeks ago.
I fumbled thru the manual to find the right page and did the re-teach.
It has been fine since.

[elidrag]

My car experienced the three lines and wouldn't start yesterday. I've only had it for three weeks and have under 500 miles on it. Called SmartUSA. They sent a flatbed tow truck within 1 hour. My Smart center said they had to replace the shifter, but it had to be ordered. I'll keep you up.dated

[cakelab]

my car had to be towed last night. i drove it all of one block to catch the bus to work yesterday morning and when i got in it last night- had the three bars mentioned. the teach in process explained by smart roadside did not work for me and they immediately smart arranged for a tow. being it was friday night- they advised the car would be held before bringing it to smart dealer in sf today.

however, i am concerned because so far i have been unable to speak to anyone at the dealer to confirm the car has been received or get an eta on the repair. reading this thread, has me prepared to be carless for longer than initially expected.... not happy to be unable to reach the dealer for information.

[Dunerunner]

It's possible you could be car-less a while, but the dealer should respond to your inquiry about your car. Talk to service, the GM, and then if no information is forthcoming, call the towing company and smartUSA.

[gvoeller]

Add me to the list. My gear shift lever stuck a couple of months ago. Got it fixed and today I drove to one hospital to make rounds without trouble and when I came out to go to another hospital, no start. Lights etc. all worked but no start and no fixes worked. It was 6:50am and had surgery to perform in 20 minutes. Smart USA did not respond so I left the car and my wife had to deal with it. It took her 3.5 hours for it to begin its trip to Jackson, MS from here in Memphis. I have no time to get it when it gets fixed and Smart USA says they will not pay to have it trucked back here to Memphis. The dealer thinks it is the shifter/tranny problem but it is BEYOND BELIEF that this so called company can sell a defective product that is under warranty and feel they are not responsible to take care of it including transportation. They do not have enough dealers and this is not my fault, it is their problem. It is beyond belief that so many of us are having these issues and we continue to drink the Smart Kool-Aid. I am telling everyone I know to avoid this car unless they want to spend their time dealing with tremendous headaches.

[NuBiker]

GV - good luck getting your car fixed. Please let us know how it all works out. My wife wanted to trade in her BMW when she got her orphan. I told her to hang onto her car until we see how the Smart works out. Man !!! I am glad we kept the BMW!!!
We will keep the Smart as a fun toy - but no way am I going to put all my eggs into one basket.....

[mdfortwoguy]

Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here - but when you bought the car, did you realize that the nearest dealer was 210 miles away?

Do you honestly think a Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chevy, Saturn, Volkswagen...etc dealer would truck your $16K car back to you in the same situation?

It sucks that your shifter broke and left you stranded, but telling everyone to avoid the car because of your incident and the fact that you have relatively unreasonable expectations of customer service from the dealer is a bit silly, IMO.

[jwight]

I'm on his side; smart could have chosen to limit dealers and sales to larger cities. They didn't - anyone in the lower 48 can buy a smart, even if there's no dealer within 300 miles. All well and good as long as nothing goes wrong; when it does, the smart business model is not set up to deal with these "remote" cars. Remember the smart response on owners changing out the secondary air injection valve - you can do it, but we won't reimburse you for the cost of the part (which fails under warranty.) They expect someone to do a 600 mile round trip to have a $37 part installed by a dealer tech? Yes, they do. smart has to compete in the real world of automobiles, including service and after sales customer support. IMHO, they have some work to do.

[mdfortwoguy]

Originally Posted by jwight

I'm on his side; smart could have chosen to limit dealers and sales to larger cities. They didn't - anyone in the lower 48 can buy a smart, even if there's no dealer within 300 miles.

And there is no law in the US allowing them to deny sale of the vehicle to anyone because of their location. Can you say lawsuit?

All well and good as long as nothing goes wrong; when it does, the smart business model is not set up to deal with these "remote" cars.

And what about people in Alaska or Hawaii with other brands of cars?

Remember the smart response on owners changing out the secondary air injection valve - you can do it, but we won't reimburse you for the cost of the part (which fails under warranty.) They expect someone to do a 600 mile round trip to have a $37 part installed by a dealer tech? Yes, they do.

You do realize that for the dealer (and smart in the end) to be reimbursed for warranty work, the work needs to be performed by a smart technician and billed back to smart/Daimler, don't you? Let alone the risk of someone damaging something while they are in there - who is going to pay for that then?

smart has to compete in the real world of automobiles, including service and after sales customer support. I

They do. You can't tell me a Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai or any other brand dealership within a range of the price of the smart would do anything different.

The problem is pointing of a finger at the dealer before looking at the (perhaps) irrational decision to purchase a vehicle without considering all of the variables that could affect the ownership of said vehicle.