DAMN - A once happy smart car owner now very frustrated - valve issue

[satxbiker]

My car is right at 3 years and 5 months old. It only has 22k on it. (very short 7 mile drive to work - lots of stop and go) I have always used premium gas in the car. I take it to the dealer once a year for the annual maint. I even did the 30K maint last year even though the car was way short of that mileage (so it has had the 10k, 20k, 30k maint).

Now back in the first year of ownership i did have the clutch plates replaced due to the issue of not being able to go into reverse. The engine would also rev extremely high to the point of redline when going up hills. Since then I have been happy with the car.

I had put a smart madness cold air intake on the car and the cruise control. Now I was not getting the awesome mileage some of you guys show, but I was attributing that to my stop and go driving and my tendency to be an aggressive driver. ( i got 35 to 34 mpg in town)

So that is the background. Last week I was driving to work and noticed the check engine light was on. I took it to the dealer and found out that one of the valves was warped bad enough that it would not close. That most likely explains the crappy mileage I was getting this past week (I had not even gotten 245 miles on the tank and the 'needs gas' light was getting ready to come on).

You know it is bad when the first words out of the service manager's mouth is do you have an extended warranty. Lucky for me I did buy one soon after the clutch plate issue. I just did not have a warm fuzzy about the car. He is telling me he has to get my permission to take the head off so the warranty folks can check it out and approve (Warranty Direct). IF by chance they dont approve I am responsible for the cost. 3k in labor!

Total charge without warranty is 3k in parts and 3k in labor.

I know lots of people are happy with their car and maybe I just got a lemon but dang... this is the first car in my series of various types of car ownership that I have had this much trouble with (I have owned Nissan, Dodge, Jeep, Honda, Toyota)

Wanting to get your options. Once the car is repaired... I do still have another 2 years and a half of warranty left. Would you keep the car or sell it? I def will not keep it past the warranty expiration. The warranty expires in Oct of 2014. Lucky for me I am also a motorcycle rider and there is no rain here this week so I do have a second vehicle to get around on.

[jwight]

Very low mileage for a bad valve, but you never know. How about getting the dealer to get your Field Operations Manager involved and see if DVI can absorb some of the cost. Other option is to look around for a used engine and take the head off of that.

[Kermit]

#1- fingers crossed they cover 100% of damage. Sounds like you're getting the worst problems out of the way. Last big dollar item to go bad would be the fuel pump. If you really appreciate, love and admire the car then keep it.

[rfernatt]

Originally Posted by jwight

Very low mileage for a bad valve, but you never know. How about getting the dealer to get your Field Operations Manager involved and see if DVI can absorb some of the cost. Other option is to look around for a used engine and take the head off of that.

Agree 100%. I'd definitely get some people up the food chain involved.

[jamarimutt]

Very,very unfortunate. There are enough similar stories here to worry every smart owner.

[TomfromPA]

Possible for a valves to argue with a piston when an engine over revs.... but I take it clutch problem was well before the valve problem???

Was the intake work well before the problem too? Or did the engine inhale something it shouldn't have??

[deepblueQ]

Originally Posted by jamarimutt

Very,very unfortunate. There are enough similar stories here to worry every smart owner.

Not me. Any car will have occasional problems, and the number of these issues doesn't appear to be anything exceptional. There would be similar things to worry about with any car... so why bother?

Originally Posted by TomfromPA

Possible for a valves to argue with a piston when an engine over revs.... but I take it clutch problem was well before the valve problem???

IIRC Larry took his to 7500 RPM back when he was still on stock internals with no signs of valve float. The ECU rev limiter should keep it well away from that sort of damage, at least on a reasonably new car like this.

[jamarimutt]

I beg to differ. The number of valve problems seems unusually high for me. This should not happen to any 2009 car with 22,000 or 122,000 miles. I like my 2011 smart and will probably keep it for the length of the two year warranty. Then, if I still like it, I'll trade it for a new one with the 4-year warranty.

[Kermit]

Originally Posted by jamarimutt

I beg to differ. The number of valve problems seems unusually high for me. This should not happen to any 2009 car with 22,000 or 122,000 miles. I like my 2011 smart and will probably keep it for the length of the two year warranty. Then, if I still like it, I'll trade it for a new one with the 4-year warranty.

EXCELLENT! Sounds like you may have inside information of the actual number of failures out of total production numbers. Could you please share the numbers with us? No sarcasm intended in this post. Completely serious.

[Padawan]

Originally Posted by jamarimutt

This should not happen to any 2009 car with 22,000 or 122,000 miles.

A 2011 Subaru WRX shouldn't need an entirely new short block due to low compression in multiple cylinders either, but my colleague's car did. The engine was completely unmodified and the car is only used for commuting.

If I were to form blanket conclusion regarding the Subaru EJ255's reliability based solely on this information, I'd come away with a very skewed perspective that doesn't accurately reflect what the majority of the tens of thousands of WRX owners experience.