I Picked Up A Smart Car And Love It

[Richad]

I'm an Elio reservation holder and got tired of waiting. I picked up a 2008 Smart Cabriolet with only 30,000 miles. I will still be getting the Elio assuming they ever make it but this car is something else. Lots of room for 2 large people. including lots of leg and head room. My Cabriolet will let you open the canvas top partially or completely while on a highway at any speed. The car in 2008 was made by Penske but taken over my Mercedes. I went back on Google to it's start and it started with a reservation but when it hit 30,000 production started and they still make it in 2017. Only down side is it's pickup isn't as good as I would like but being an aggressive former NY driver it it isn't all that bad. I purchased this as a spare so I don't have to put a million miles on my 2016 Mazda CX-3 Mercedes markets this by word of mouth without doing much advertising.

 

[floydv]

Make sure it has the 2.0 transmission software upgrade; you can confirm it with the dealer. It makes a difference with that model year. Enjoy it. I agree, that was one of the most fun cars I ever had.

 

[Sethodine]

I saw the title to this thread, "I Picked Up A Smart Car And Love It" and my first thought was, "well, they're pretty small cars, I'm sure they're not too difficult to pick up and carry."

In high school, a couple friends of mine picked up a bug and rotated it 90 degrees in its parking space, leaving the owner (a fellow classmate and prankster) trapped between two large pickup trucks. In the end, he thought it was hilarious.

 

[Maurtis]

Nice! The Smart cabriolet was the main car I was looking at for a fun commuter while waiting for the Elio. Used, low mileage, good condition Smarts run in the $6k - $8k range around here. Hard to beat for a fun, reliable commuter.

 

[floydv]

I saw the title to this thread, "I Picked Up A Smart Car And Love It" and my first thought was, "well, they're pretty small cars, I'm sure they're not too difficult to pick up and carry."

In high school, a couple friends of mine picked up a bug and rotated it 90 degrees in its parking space, leaving the owner (a fellow classmate and prankster) trapped between two large pickup trucks. In the end, he thought it was hilarious.

Since smart came to the US in 2008, a number of pranksters thought it would be funny to flip a smart onto its side or its rear end. I bet the thousands of dollars of damage done wasn't too funny from the owners' perspective. This smart car flipping continues today.

 

[W. WIllie]

For "Smart' car owners:
How does it handle in evasive actions at say "freeway speeds'?

 

[Maurtis]

For "Smart' car owners:
How does it handle in evasive actions at say "freeway speeds'?

That is something I tried on one of my test drives. It swerved fine and did not feel like it was going to tip over or do anything funky. According to R&T, the previous model of Smart was not so great on their skidpad, but that is a much different test than what we would see on typical commutes:

"Although studies have shown that stability control systems are the second biggest savers of lives (after seatbelts), ESP wreaked havoc in our tests. On our 200-ft. skidpad, the fortwo understeered its way to a 0.72g rating, our driver doing his best to keep ESP right on the cusp of intervening. In the slalom, ESP was simply too active, limiting the fortwo to a 57.6-mph weave that earns it the distinction of being the slowest slalom car in our Road Test Summary, booting the Rolls-Royce Phantom from that spot. Shifted manually right before the 6500-rpm fuel cut-off point in each gear, the smart hits 60 mph in 13.3 seconds, another performance that puts it at the bottom of the pack."

 

[W. WIllie]

Maurtis:
Thanks for the reply/information.

 

[Richad]

Make sure it has the 2.0 transmission software upgrade; you can confirm it with the dealer. It makes a difference with that model year. Enjoy it. I agree, that was one of the most fun cars I ever had.

Smart ran the veh Id and told me the transmission software was upgraded in 2009

 

[Richad]

For "Smart' car owners:
How does it handle in evasive actions at say "freeway speeds'?

I find it to be very responsive. Only issue is pickup getting on highway but it's acceptable.. U tube has a great video of the production line for the Smart. The whole car feels like quality.