Smart Car-Consumer report

[JerryP]

Timing is everything, my consumer report arrived today, and it is the car buyers issue

2nd least expensive to own over 5 year, Honda fit is number one.
Slowest 14.6 seconds 0-60

Reliability is below average,

The review is not so good, but cliche, in that all smart reviews are the same, pointing out lack of power, noisy, premium fuel, etc
I think the biggest problem is that they love bigger vehicles with bigger engines.

I noticed a marked difference, and vast improvement in the reliability ratings from 2008 models to the 2009 model,
Appears many of the tramsmission issues were taken care of.
Lowest ratings for 09 were average ( O ) items were body integrity, Body hardware, Audio system, and Used verdict, Everthing else was better, or above average.

Owner satisfaction is very high

[Terry Stibal]

Consumer Reports has always shown a bias towards the types of cars their readership tends to buy. This is partially due to the closed feedback loop that their ratings system uses, whereby the readers of the magazine are polled for their experiences - those vehicles with the greatest ownership tend to have the most feedback data, as might be expected. (They do show models with insufficient feedback, however.)

I'd not go so far as to say that they are all stodgy old folks; there are occasional departures from the upper middle class lifestyle. However, they generally hew to the Buick owner profile in their selection of products and the like. We subscribed for many years (and have never owned a Buick, I hasten to add), but gave it up when we found that we seldom bought anything any longer that they bothered to rate.

[crumb]

Comsumer Reports never considers aspects such as 'different', 'interesting', or 'fun'. They grade cars the way they grade toasters. I just got a pure, and yes it's slow, shifts funny, blah blah blah..... and,...I LOVE it!!

[vwW12]

Originally Posted by Terry Stibal

and have never owned a Buick, I hasten to add

whew! glad you clarified that! had me worried for a minute, there.

Seriously now, I am puzzled by the "reliability below average statistic." From this forum, I have never gotten the feeling that people were having "issues" with this car.

I know ours has been a rock-solid car.

And am very glad that the losers at consumer reports at least are honest enough to report that this is the 2nd least expensive to own car over a 5 yr period.

[SmartDigger]

Rock solid for me.

[gstreetcomic]

That is a no brainer. It seems to me that Consumer reports has always been the leading hater of Smarts since day one. Like that should really bug mua

[Bill Marshall]

Originally Posted by JerryP

Timing is everything, my consumer report arrived today, and it is the car buyers issue

2nd least expensive to own over 5 year, Honda fit is number one.
Slowest 14.6 seconds 0-60

Reliability is below average,

The review is not so good, but cliche, in that all smart reviews are the same, pointing out lack of power, noisy, premium fuel, etc
I think the biggest problem is that they love bigger vehicles with bigger engines.

I noticed a marked difference, and vast improvement in the reliability ratings from 2008 models to the 2009 model,
Appears many of the tramsmission issues were taken care of.
Lowest ratings for 09 were average ( O ) items were body integrity, Body hardware, Audio system, and Used verdict, Everthing else was better, or above average.

Owner satisfaction is very high

Consumer Reports only reviewed the smart fortwo once. Since then, they've simply updated the reliability item, the price, etc.

The original review was completely incompetent. The criticism of the transmission, for example, reflected the driving skills - or lack thereof - belonging to the reviewer. Any standard transmission will be jerky & will buck if you don't know how to use it.

Some of the criticisms were legitimate & either you're willing to live with the ideosyncrasies or you're not. Embedded within the article were actually sopme good selling points. The mpg they obtained was even better than that reported by EPA by 10% - and that normally doesn't happen with a CR test drive. The cost of ownership is another positive.

[willow1308]

The 0-60 in 14.6 seconds is probably in the D transmission mode. I always drive in the manual mode. In manual... there is certainly less delay between gear changes (and you can hold it in a lower gear longer)...and I bet it shaves some time off the 0-60 figure. I drive my '09 Smart aggressively ...and never have a problem moving in and out of traffic. I'm sure I lose a little gas mileage...but my gas bill is so small...hard to tell the difference in my pocket book. My other cars are all high performance vehicles...but I never feel underpowered in my Smart.

Another observation...I have the factory upgraded sound system...radio sound quality is just OK...CD sound quality is great! Consumer Report probably never operates the CD player during evaluation tests.

[cooped]

I have own my Brabus for two months 12/29 09 and love every minute. The car is a lot of fun to drive.

[cooped]

I have Had people come up to me at work and ask me about the car. I give them high ratings on the car.