Pretty uneventful is the best way to describe my personall cold wheather testing of my Smart
It was -16 F this morning but the car started up just fine. It cranked a little slower than normal, which is to be expected. I turned on the seat heaters, set the heater to defrost, turned on the rear window defrost and went back in the house.
After less than 5 min. warmup, I took off.
The transmission shifted as normal, the engine ran as normal, the seat felt great and the windows cleared off in a normal amount of time.
No, the heater was not like the old days. If you want really good heat, nothing beats a cast iron lump of a V8! It takes burning fuel to make heat and the Smart does not use much fuel.
The winds moved the car around, as would be expected. The key is to not over-react to the car. This is true of all small and/or tall cars. It never felt unstable and had no wind leaks
The streets had 4 to 5 inches of very hard, wind packed snow combined with patches of bare ice. Tjhis made the ride quality a bit rough. No big surprise there. The Pirelli SnoControls worked well on the hard snow, the soft, un-plowed snow and best of all, on the bare, polished ice.
The weight bias, combined with traction and stability control, made for a very manageable trip. Under normal acceleration, the only indication that the systems were working was the intermittent flashing of the orange tri-angle indicator on the dash.
I would say that the forward traction was equal to my old 2005 Honda Accord and the braking was superior, due to better brake pedal feel.
In other words, the Smart passed the test, performing as well as any other car I have owned under these conditions and a lot better than some. I would have frozen to death driving my new-at-the-time 1991 GEO Metro, with the lack of heat and poor weather seals. Just one more test to cross off my list.
Yes, the Smart is a real car.
A2Jack
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