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On another thread JMfortwo gave us a nice history of his Smart car life, so I thought it would be nice to hear other stories. To start with you may want to see his Post on "Engine Light On Again...". Below is my overview.
We were an early adopter when reservations were announced; after seeing the car in Europe we put our $99 down in May 2007. The Yellow Passion we configured was shipped to Smart of Santa Barbara (Ca) in Aug of 2008, which was 50 miles away, what a thrill driving it home. We have since put 77K miles on it, it has been to Las Vegas (Jam the Dam II) and Tucson, otherwise it has been an around town car. We usually get 38-39 MPG with fairly aggressive driving.
Only two things have had to be repaired; The fuel pump-to-hose fitting on top of the gas tank cracked at the 50K mark (no reason could be found) and the pump had to be replaced; and I replaced the clutch actuator at 75K because it kept pulsating/clattering when driving less than 5 mph (parking, looking for a spot, etc). Every 6 months I removed the actuator and lubed it well inside, it would go quiet for about 1K miles and start making the noise again. Then late last year it started engaging the clutch VERY hard as soon as I let off the brake. I made several adjustments without success, this hard engagement would last a day or two then everything was fine for a couple of weeks and the cycle would repeat without any hard acceleration beforehand. Since the replacement it has worked very smooth.
In March of this year I came across a 2009 Black Brabus with only 19K miles being sold by bagman68 in Tx, bought it and had it transported to Ca in a covered carrier. It also is a great car and will last us a good 20 years. The gas mileage on the 2009 is coming in at 33-34 and I attribute that to 3 factors; the car came with 185/60 tires on all corners, a Smartmadness GoPedal, and the Smartmadness AutoFlash ,which modifies the shifting program. None of these enhancements are in the name of economy.
A neighbor wanted to buy our 2008, so we sold it to them and I am sure they will get at least another 75K miles out of it.
We were an early adopter when reservations were announced; after seeing the car in Europe we put our $99 down in May 2007. The Yellow Passion we configured was shipped to Smart of Santa Barbara (Ca) in Aug of 2008, which was 50 miles away, what a thrill driving it home. We have since put 77K miles on it, it has been to Las Vegas (Jam the Dam II) and Tucson, otherwise it has been an around town car. We usually get 38-39 MPG with fairly aggressive driving.
Only two things have had to be repaired; The fuel pump-to-hose fitting on top of the gas tank cracked at the 50K mark (no reason could be found) and the pump had to be replaced; and I replaced the clutch actuator at 75K because it kept pulsating/clattering when driving less than 5 mph (parking, looking for a spot, etc). Every 6 months I removed the actuator and lubed it well inside, it would go quiet for about 1K miles and start making the noise again. Then late last year it started engaging the clutch VERY hard as soon as I let off the brake. I made several adjustments without success, this hard engagement would last a day or two then everything was fine for a couple of weeks and the cycle would repeat without any hard acceleration beforehand. Since the replacement it has worked very smooth.
In March of this year I came across a 2009 Black Brabus with only 19K miles being sold by bagman68 in Tx, bought it and had it transported to Ca in a covered carrier. It also is a great car and will last us a good 20 years. The gas mileage on the 2009 is coming in at 33-34 and I attribute that to 3 factors; the car came with 185/60 tires on all corners, a Smartmadness GoPedal, and the Smartmadness AutoFlash ,which modifies the shifting program. None of these enhancements are in the name of economy.
A neighbor wanted to buy our 2008, so we sold it to them and I am sure they will get at least another 75K miles out of it.
