New Smart-Synthetic oil from the factory?

[John_H]

So Sato - are you saying it's done at the Smart Centers rather than by Smart manufacturing or by SmartUSA before it gets to the Smart Center?

[sato7]

No the smart centers are the selling points of the smarts cars. the MERCEDES processing center receives ALL Mercedes and smart cars that enter the USA. there are a few processing centers on the east and I think west coast. I just happen to know someone there and they gave me a private tour of the facility... It was incredible to see. I drove a Brabus smart before they came out, revved a couple of MB super cars and saw how the smarts are prepped BEFORE they are sent to the dealers.. I/E car wash, oil change, various stickers and labels.. etc. the process is very interesting.

[JohnnyM]

Thanks sato7 for the interesting insight. Also, do you think the the newly arrived smarts go directly thru this vehicle prep as they are unloaded or do they go thru the prep just before they are being assigned for truck shipment to the dealer?

If you care to share any photos I would be interested.

[Old smart]

Originally Posted by sato7

I have been to the Mercedes prep operations center here in Jacksonville and can attest to the fact that the smarts are all drained of the oil the they were shipped with and "by orders of Penske" were re-filled with Mobil one full synth oil. I even have the pics of the bays they do it through.

sato7 is correct. smartUSA, Bloomfield verified to me by email that the engines are shipped "wet" from Mizushima to Hambach with a non-synthetic oil, and that smartUSA is now changing the oil to a universal Mobil 1 0W-40 at the U.S. VPCs so that they don't go for the first 1yr/10K mi service interval without synthetic. This information and some of the text of that email exists on this site.

They chose to not tell me their reasoning for this expensive procedure when asked, so I have developed a few of my own thoughts about it - pro and con.