Gee, that's really ugly, nasty! Sorry for your loss, Danny. Hopefully, you can restore the smart to his former glory. And keep yours better protected.
I don't think the 450 crowd would be attracted to this part. Not sure who would? Is there anything we can do? Maybe this forum is a good place to report smart losses or pilfering???
It has been rumored that some gray market 451s have made there way here from across the pond but are not being sold yet because of the conversion. I don’t know why any dealer would waste their time because they are still going to be $25k+???
I really wonder who could possibly be doing the conversion.
I know, for a fact, it would not be G&K,
I certainly resent anyone starting OR perpetuating such.
Where did you hear this rumor, smartcenterSeattle ? You should ask your source this same question.
I'm sorry this happened, beside the fact that it is a complete waste.
The 451 speedo cluster is not interchangeable with the 450 and I'll bet it is not at all adaptable.
We park all of our smarts inside at night. Right now we have ten total locked in the shop. For some reason, I have always felt there would be tempation for people to mess with these cars for some reason. I don't, know why, but I have always kept them locked up. It seems like things that draw a lot of attention seem to draw bad attention as well. We always keep the really expensive cars inside at our other dealerships, I guess I view the smart in the same way and want to remove the temptation. Sorry that this happened.
Criminals look for any opportunity. All anyone can do is try to make it harder for them to succeed. I bought the alarm and you can get Lojack. I can't think of much else. Except to CURSE THE FIENDS!!! (and hopefully catch them and throw them in jail).
Last edited by Smartdavis; 03-08-2008 at 08:11 PM.
In my opinion (BTW, I'm an expert thief....I'll let you decide if I'm kidding...haha), I think they took it for the warranty factor.
When I reserved the Smart car I didn't know it only came with a 24k warranty...maybe I didn't read the fine print, so now the thief gets his car and wants to have 2 years unlimited mileage warranty. In France you get 4 years unlimited mileage warranty...French have great wine, food and warranties!!! Now, I would pay for an unlimited mileage warranty. If I get the Smart I'll likely retire most of my vehicles and drive it the most, so a real warranty...not the third party/$100 deductible warranty is ideal.
Well, you can either disconnect the mileage wire and not know how fast you are going among other complications which can cause sensor problems and potentially more serious problems depending on the vehicle OR you can swap out an instrument cluster. Swap clusters when the car needs repairs and now you have an unlimited mileage warranty just like they give you in Europe.
At least that would be my motivation to steal an instrument cluster. I'm just being honest. I didn't do it. Then throw in the double bonus of being able to sell a high mileage car without any maintenance costs as a low mileage Smart...rather Smart in the evolution sense if you can get away with it...not legal or ethical.
Oh, and I spoke to Danny a week or two ago at your dealership (Edison). I don't think any other dealer in the U.S. requires people to come in to be on the orphan list, but I think that's rather savvy to keep it down to a lower level and more local. New Jersey's other two dealers were very local centered (more so than any other state in the region). The Englewood won't put you on unless you are local (so I guess give them your friend's jersey number if you have a Jersey friend) and the Cherry Hill location claims they Smart penalizes them 2% if they don't sell to local reservation holders, which nobody else has told me.
Something tells me that these Smart cars will be targets for abuse. I wonder if they have a higher theft rate or vandalism rate than other cars...anyone know the European/Canadian statistics?
My understanding from some of the service bulletins is that the instrument cluster is vin encoded and would need to have the STAR diagnostic equipment ($25k US) to get it to work. Even if they get it to work, the original VIN stays with the cluster so it is easy to trace if it was ever to find its way into a smart center service department or if someone tries to sell it on craigslist or ebay. Unfortunately, the unknowing buyer will probably be the one that is hassled.
I doubt they are going to ebay it. Is the VIN physically encoded or is it electronically encoded? Can the instrument cluster be taken apart to swap out the mileage? I can't imagine it would go for much on ebay...at least most instrument clusters aren't really high dollar items unless it's for a high dollar car....or at least the car parts that I look for on ebay when I see an instrument cluster they don't really go for enough to just zero in on the cluster. Airbags go for a lot more, but you can hurt yourself taking those out, but someone posted today that they took delivery on their Smart and the side airbag fell out of the seat.
I can't see someone doing this for a 450...these cars get WAY too much attention from Joe Public and a 450 with a 451 dash...ah, it's a small community of car owners...it's possible you could get away with it, but just for the sake of km to mph...seems a bit extreme for just an USA cluster...you can't register a 450 in the states. I think your suspect is a 451 owner or some bored teenager who has a science project.
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Is there anything we can do? Maybe this forum is a good place to report smart losses or pilfering???
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