Well I got to experience my first problem with my 09 Smart. Pulled out of the garage and went to pull out into traffic and no power, quickly pulled it over and looked down at the cluster and saw the wrench with a smaller one behind it flashing and D was flashing. Pulled out the manual and read my transmission was in "limp-mode". call my dealer, wasn't really sure what flashing wrench was. I asked if I should drive it down or have it towed, he said if it drives go ahead and drive it, and went around the block and it shifts 2-3-4-5.
Got it down there and its pulling a generic shift code and he is going to contact smart about it. Claims its happened twice in the car's history (but this is the 1st time its effected the car). He said he wouldn't be able to get anything today on the car because at noon Central time there was going to be a conference call about 2008 cars (Sounds like the talk about upgrading the transmissions).
Anywho car is back on the road and shifting fine but he said we'll be in touch and the car could act up again.
Anyone encounter an issue like this were you are locked out a gear in the transmission?
I've seen this before. I'll bet that they'll do a forced re-train on the transmission. The way to force it is by leaving it in neutral and disconnecting the battery for about 30 mins. When it comes back up it will show 3-bars on the display. From there you shift from park, down to drive, and back again, slowly. The transmission will grind a bit, and eventually you'll get a park indicator.
I had this happen to me once when I shifted too quickly from drive to reverse. In my case since the car was stopped, it just went to 3-bars and beeped at me. A quick re-train, and it was right as rain. I've learned not to shift as quickly (or when the car is moving, for that matter), and I've not had the problem since.
I didn't get the 3 bars indicator and if I recall with the 3 bars you can't drive the car, this was drive able, both in manual mode and in auto, but it was taking off in 2nd gear and couldn't get into 1st.
I was making a left hand turn and had to slow abruptly in the middle of it for a bus, but then had to floor it to get out of the way of an oncoming car. It was trying to upshift when I floored it, and it sort of got confused.
I was about 2 blocks from home, so I limped it to my garage in case it wouldn't re-train. I was able to re-train it though with no problems. It hasn't happened since, either.
I've seen this before. I'll bet that they'll do a forced re-train on the transmission. The way to force it is by leaving it in neutral and disconnecting the battery for about 30 mins. When it comes back up it will show 3-bars on the display. From there you shift from park, down to drive, and back again, slowly. The transmission will grind a bit, and eventually you'll get a park indicator.
I had this happen to me once when I shifted too quickly from drive to reverse. In my case since the car was stopped, it just went to 3-bars and beeped at me. A quick re-train, and it was right as rain. I've learned not to shift as quickly (or when the car is moving, for that matter), and I've not had the problem since.
And when it happened, I had recollection of the dreaded 3 lines thru P and simply did the trans reteaching exercise and all was fixed.
I learned not to shift too quickly from drive to reverse OR to shift while moving either forward or in reverse.
Well just got a call back from Joe at my local dealer and he is submitting all of the info that was taken from my car and it gets sent to Smart of Germany to figure out what caused it and if there is a fix.
According to smartusa I was the first person to submit a problem with the transmission going into Limp Mode!
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