Quote:
Originally Posted by deltadart
It's hard to argue with a 10 year/100,000 mile warranty on the engine/transmission even though they usually don't break. That's still lightyears better than the Smart unless they have change the 24K mile warranty. And what "multiple visits to a shop for a conventional automatic transmission" are you talking about? There are quite a few cars that have sealed transmissions that require very few ATF changes.
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My point was that those 100,000 mile warranties are not free with the car. The car companies simply got sick of all of the aftermarket companies eating up the profit margins. So the car companies simply raised the price of the car and said it's included.
Smart could do the same thing. Instead of selling the car for $14,900 with a 24-month/24,000 mile warranty, they could simply raise the price to $16,400 and make it a 60-month/100,000 mile warranty. You can do it yourself by buying the car and buying an extended warranty.
Smart made that low warranty to keep costs down, plain and simple.
I doubt any person could not drive a new smart 100,000 miles and not have the engine throw a rod or blow the transmission. That car has a manual transmission and those things last forever if you change the gear lube regularly if you decide to use the cheap gear lubes in the auto part stores.
When I say multiple visits, you are supposed to change the transmission fluid about every 30,000 miles. So by the time you hit 100,000 miles on most 4-cylinder cars, you have had to pay all that money to change the transmission fluid 3 times and do a timing belt.
With the smart, I would simply go about 7,000 miles to let the transmission break in good and then I would go with the Amsoil 75W90 gear oil which lasts 100,000 miles. Since the smart has a timing chain, that's one less expense you have to mess with.
This car is so dirt cheap to own, it's not even funny. But if you keep bringing it back to smart or Mercedes for your oil changes, you're not going to save any money and the maintenance will cost you much, much more than owning something like a Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris with an automatic transmission.
Many people neglect the automatic transmission. They drive it until it starts having problems and then they finally break down and spend the money on a transmission flush. By then, it's too late. The damage is done and the transmission then needs to be overhauled.
I always avoid those problems altogether. I do preventative maintenance all the time and never spend a dime on rebuilding an automatic transmission or engine. My cars always run like new for the entire time I own them, no matter how many miles I put on them. I would expect the same with a smart car.
Smart should warn all customers about the short-comings of this car so that the people don't buy the car, put 5,000 miles on it and then try to sell them right away. The dealers have a hard enough time trying to unload their inventory without having thousands of people compete with them trying to unload almost-like-new smart cars.
I bet you that many people buy the smart car and have no idea what it will cost to go back and get the car maintained at smart or Mercedes. Then when they go back, they get sticker shock, like the local place here told me the oil change for the smart was over $230 bucks!
Thank god I am not that lazy. I don't mind backing the car up on some ramps and change the oil myself. It's not all that difficult to do. The differential on the transmission may be the little tricky part. You will have to run a hose down with a funnel passed through from the engine compartment. I was told that it only takes 3-1/2 quarts. That's like $40 bucks worth of fluid and you're done. With a conventional automatic, you need to add above and beyond what the transmission takes so that the torque converter can be flushed out with the old fluid in it. This is why I LOVE manual transmissions so much. Easy maintenance and they last forever. I don't mind shifting in traffic.
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