The smart at home. Note the front discs fill the 15 inch wheels.
I’ll let you all answer the question, though I would encourage you not to pass final judgment until you experience a ForTwo in the flesh.
Life is full of unexpected turns. Witness, my becoming a smart owner (all lower case is correct in this application).
smart stands for Swatch+Mercedes+Art. Wikipedia has a good page on it, and I’ll let you read more history there.
The original Swatch design
The idea started as a joint venture between Swatch and VW, then VW bailed on the Swatch-designed vehicle, and Mercedes joined in.
Swatch then left the party, but the name remained on the clean-sheet design that resulted in 1998 after Mercedes started over. My 2015 is the final year of the second generation, a W451 in Mercedes parlance. They are all built at a single factory in Hambach, France.
There have been two prior smart write-ups at CC, touching on a roadster I had never heard of, and the four passenger version, which I had heard of but which was never sold in the USA.
When I bought the 2016 Winnebago View from my parents, they also gave me all their “flat tow” gear, worth about $2,500.00. Flat towing is when you tow a car behind the motorhome, all four wheels down, no trailer or dolly.
You can flat tow anything with a stick shift, pretty much. You can also flat tow something like my Suburban, if it is four wheel drive and has a true neutral setting for the transfer case. Some people flat tow automatic equipped cars, with aftermarket equipment to pump the transmission fluid in the “toad” (as the towed vehicle is called) to protect it during the towing process.
I have read a lot of conflicting info online about the towing choices. A lot of people swear by flat towing as being the easiest overall. You have no trailer or dolly to store at home or at your destination. You don’t have to load the toad onto a trailer or dolly, and strap it down which can be an arduous task if done right. The flat tow equipment is pretty straightforward. You install a “plate” on the front frame rail ends of the toad, which has two attachment points. These points then connect to two articulating arms from the RV, off the hitch receiver.
On my recent 6,700 mile trip to from North Carolina to California and back, I paid attention to the RV’s passing me in the opposing direction. I have to say it was an equal mix of 1. no toad at all, 2. a flat towed toad, 3. a toad with one axle on a dolly, and 4. a toad up on a trailer, all four wheels off the ground.
My wife and I don’t have anything suitable to flat tow now, aside from the Suburban, which is too heavy to safely tow on a long trip with the View. Behind a Class A gas or diesel RV, the Suburban would be fine to tow. A relatively short, flat tow like to the beach from my house, would probably be OK.
We recently went camping in Tennessee for a week, and hiked most days in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is only about two hours from my house. My wife wanted to go over early to shop in the outlet stores. So, she drove on her own there the first morning in her 2016 Cayenne (the biggest lemon we have ever owned, need to write that one up), and met me at the campground that evening, so we also would have a car.
While we were sitting in a restaurant a couple of days later, we started talking about being able to use the RV more, with our youngest heading to college this Fall. We were talking about what to get to tow behind it for certain trips.
Something small, easy to park in the (sometimes) very crowded national parks, light, and easy to tow. And, we could use a “spare” car when all three kids are home from college, for around town use.
The Fiat 500 came to mind,
as well as a Mini. Outside the window, a smart ForTwo was waiting at a traffic light. Light bulb moment! We need a smart to flat tow.
I tried to do a little research from my phone. It appeared people were flat towing them, but they were automatics. I was confused and decided to research more on bigger screen. I also cautioned my wife that I just wasn’t sure how many smarts were out there to buy at all, since they were slow sellers and discontinued in the USA after the 2019 model year.
Turns out the first two generations use an automated five speed manual by Getrag. You can flat tow then by leaving them in neutral, turning the key off, and disconnecting the battery. It is a true manual with a clutch, but the computer and solenoids engage and disengage the clutch, as well as shift gears. It’s a more advanced version of the VW Autostick, sold from 1968 to 1976.
Maybe someone can tell us why smart would go the automated manual route, but I assume it is lighter and cheaper than a true automatic.
The automated manual, with the halfshafts exiting. At the bottom of the picture, you can make out a black box and rubber bellows; that is the solenoid for clutching and shifting gears
It looks about like a lawn tractor transmission under there. And, it can be driven by those who don’t want to shift. Even if you like to shift a stick, it can be a chore in city driving, and with the smart you just put it in “D” and give it gas. You can use the paddle shifters, or pull the gearshift leftwards into “sport” mode and shift manually if you like.
In addition to the ability to leave it in neutral, it weighs under 1800 pounds, about 600 pounds less than the Fiat and 1000 or more pounds less than a Mini Cooper.
I looked at the Blue Ox website (as I have Blue Ox flat tow equipment from my parents, there are other brands out there) and 2015 was the last smart model year with a tow plate available. There is no Blue Ox tow plate for the current 2016- version.
So, I needed a W451, second generation smart from the 2008 to 2015 USA model years. My local Mercedes dealers had none; CarMax had 15 in the entire nation!
I used Google to do more local research. There were quite a few smarts at local buy here, pay here lots, but most had high miles (90,000 or more). I found one good 2015 smart with miles in the teens from a private seller about 75 miles from me. He replied to my email right away, but then didn’t get back to me about when we could meet.
There were also the logistical problems of buying from any private seller, even if he had firmed up an appointment. Does it have a tag? Can I test drive it? Do I give him the money without getting the title in my hand first? I wouldn’t expect a seller to want to hand me the title without the money first, either. And, the fact that he never set up a time to view the car made me wonder if it was a scam.
A black “Pure” base model from the internet. An early model from the second generation. “Chickenhead” logo on the hood instead of in the grille.
So, after a couple of weeks of waiting on the private seller, back to CarMax I went. You can do a free seven day hold online with CarMax, no cost, no obligation. I held the best one of the fifteen for our purposes: a 2015 black “Pure” or base model smart like you see here, $8500.00, 26,000 miles, and transferable from Kentucky to my closest CarMax for $150.00. I figured that would give me a few days to keep looking and thinking.
The Pure is pretty much a stripper. This one had the optional A/C, but plastic wheel covers on steelies, crank windows, and vinyl/cloth seats. Perfect for what we wanted.
After a few days of thinking, and we decided to pay the transfer fee. I logged into my CarMax account and there was a “new arrival that fits your recent search”. It was as a white “Passion+Comfort” for a little more money, $9800.00, same year, but fewer miles, and a lot more equipment.
A 2015 Pure when new was just under $15,000.00. For just under $19,000.00, a 2015 Passion added A/C, power windows, power locks, power mirrors, body color mirrors, LED running lights, alloy wheels, fixed panel “sunroof” with manual sliding sunshade, and paddle shifters. The $1000 “Comfort” package on the new arrival added rain sensing wipers, heated seats, leather seats, electric power steering, a “roller shade” cargo cover, and odds and ends compartments behind the front seats.
The only options missing were cruise control, and a 7 speaker sound system with navigation.
It was at CarMax in Jacksonville, Florida, about 450 miles each way from my house. It was “not transferable”, which means they will not move it at any price to another CarMax. I don’t know how they decide whether to make this designation or not; I assume they think it can be sold easily enough where it is, so maybe it should stay put.
I could still do a free 7 day hold though, so I cancelled the hold on the black one in Kentucky (you can only have one hold at a time), and placed a hold on the white Florida car. At the end of the week, we drove to Jacksonville in the RV on Friday for a 4pm appointment to see the smart. Whether we bought it or not, we would spend the night at a local campground, and return home Saturday.
According to the CarFax (and then from examining all the registration materials sent to me by CarMax), it was a three year new car lease in Florida from Spring 2015 to Spring 2018, covering 5,000 miles. It was sold at auction by Mercedes-Benz Financial to a Mercedes-Benz dealer in Florida.
The second owner covered 13,000 additional miles in two years. The second owner traded it in to CarMax in Jacksonville about three weeks prior, whereupon we became the third owners at about 18,500 miles.
The View and the smart ready to leave the lot at CarMax in Jacksonville, Florida
Accommodations are actually quite good for two, and a bit of luggage or shopping.
The rear glass (complete with wiper/washer and grid defroster), has a touch sensitive release pad up under the lip above the license plate.
Once the glass is released, lift up, then pull the small latch at either end of the tailgate to lower it.
The white plastic folder is the owner’s manual. The black plastic tailgate interior panel, opens upwards for hiding small items.
There’s plenty of room for a weekend’s worth of soft luggage for two, or a good deal of groceries.
The front seats allow a generous amount of travel, and my 6’3″ sons can fit comfortably behind the wheel. I am 5’10”, and have to have the driver seat pulled up closer than the farthest setting for sure. The seatbelts have auto retraction in the event of a crash, and there are front airbags, knee airbags, curtain airbags above the side glass, and side airbags in the seatback side bolsters.
The gauge cluster has everything you need, and nothing you don’t, like an old Beetle. There are handy cubby areas to either side of the steering column for a wallet, phone, etc.
The key switch is between the seats just aft of the gearshift, a la Saab.
There is a front “hood”, which smart calls a “service flap”. Under the flap is the coolant reservoir, brake fluid, and washer fluid. The radiator, condenser, and electric cooling fan also reside there. There is no provision for storage under the “hood”. There is a generously sized cabin filter, accessed under the driver side of the dash.
Like the rest of the body, the service flap is plastic and the color goes all the way through (all the white parts of my car are solid color plastic). The silver band you see is paint, and is the metal structure of the car, with frame rails and a hidden metal bumper front and rear. The doors have a metal frame, to which is attached the outer skin and inner trim panel.
So where is the engine? Under the luggage area, laying about 60 degrees tilted towards the rear. It is a 999cc, 3 cylinder engine with DOHC, 4 valves per cylinder, 70 horsepower, and 68 foot pounds of torque.
It is a Mitsubishi design, shared with their smallest EU and JDM cars. So parts, filters, and the like are all over the internet and dirt cheap. Why 999cc? I assume it is a Japanese tax classification cutoff of some sort.
How does it drive?
Well, pretty darn good, actually. I guess we had really low expectations, because we were amazed. Taking it for a test drive onto the busy Jacksonville beltway was intimidating, but we quickly realized it could keep up with traffic. Not run away from traffic, mind you, but keeping pace with two passengers and the A/C on was no problem. Wiki says it’ll get you to 60mph in 10.7 seconds, which isn’t bad.
The ABS-equipped brakes are superb, though they have rear drums. The front disks look quite large in relation to what little car they have to stop. My wife about put us through the windshield with a heavy braking foot. “Gee, I didn’t expect it to have good brakes!”. The brake pedal is a cute affair, hinged from the floor like an old Beetle.
It feels and rides like a much larger car. The tires are chunky 15 inch Continentals all around, relative to the size of the car. It’s got a heavy feel to the controls, like a Mercedes. If you were blindfolded and could drive it blindfolded, you might believe you were driving an older C-Class. The electric power steering is pinky-finger light when parking, but real firm after that. I suspect the electric power steering simply comes on at parking speeds, then shuts off, rather than being a complicated variable system.
The engine noise is very muffled, not what I expected at all. There is about a 2 inch thick layer of foam on the underside of the load floor carpet, then another insulation blanket on the engine side of the metal engine cover. There is appreciable road noise, though, even at city speeds.
It has a surprisingly “supple” feel to the ride. My uncle’s Renault Alliance he bought new when I was about 14 sprang immediately to mind. Speed bumps and parking lot potholes are neck-snapping due to the tiny wheelbase. But at highway speeds, the ride is just fine for a small car.
The automated manual takes a few blocks to get used to. The key trick is to give it gas, and keep your accelerator foot steady. Your initial inclination is to let up on the gas pedal, when the car drops the RPMs and engages the clutch to shift up to the next gear. If you let up on the gas, then the car thinks you no longer want the next gear, so it abandons the gear shift. Then you give it gas, and it’s stuck in the wrong gear, and it bucks and jerks.
Just give it gas pulling away from a stop, and keep your foot steady. Let the car do the RPM drop, disengage the clutch, perform the shift, engage the clutch, and then resume the RPM’s in relation to your foot. It happens quicker than you can read that sentence. If you floor the accelerator, it will immediately pick the lowest appropriate gear for the road speed, and take off with surprising urgency.
Once you learn all that, it’s second nature and it’s all the fun of a stick, without the work. My three college-age kids went from “What a ridiculous car!” to “Wow, I love this car!” after driving around town.
So why did it sell so poorly in the USA? My take from about 1,000 miles of ownership:
- When new, it was super expensive (in my opinion) for what it is. Even as a used car, there are better options for the same money unless you have a very specific set of criteria it matches. If you just need cheap wheels, the same money would get you a good low mileage Sonic, Spark, or Versa Note, with a back seat, and more cargo room.
- It also “requires” premium gas (though I have filled it with regular too, and sense no difference).
- The EPA gas mileage ratings of 34mpg city, 38mpg highway, 36mpg combined are disappointing for such a small car, especially when paired with the premium fuel edict.
- I suspect the thought of expensive service at a smart/Mercedes dealer discouraged many buyers. The routine services are super easy to carry out yourself, though, and lots of EU owner clubs, sites and videos are on the Web.
- USA Mercedes shoppers (and dealers) aren’t interested in a tiny car, and USA urban drivers who want a small car don’t think of hitting the Mercedes dealer.
- Safety. Would I rather be in my Suburban if someone hit me? Of course I would. But, with the steel “cage” and all the airbags, I don’t feel unsafe at city speeds and in the ways we intend to use it at our camping destinations.
- A two seater, unless it is a pure sports car, strikes most potential buyers as impractical.
- The aforementioned learning curve on the automated manual. It would have to give you a poor impression on a test drive. If you have never driven a stick at all, you may never understand how to drive it smoothly.
For what we want to use it for behind an RV, though, and parking in odd spaces like at the end of the row in a busy national park, it is perfect. If you are a big city dweller and need a small car to bebop around the city, or maybe use for weekend getaways out of the city for one or two people, it’s great. If you want to leave it at a second home for occasional use, it fits the bill. But there just aren’t enough buyers with such specific needs to make a go of it.
Over two million smarts of all three generations have been sold since its inception. So, it’s hardly a failure, though that is below the intended quantities.
So what’s next? I need to install the Blue Ox tow plate, of course. This smart had an AM/FM/CD player with two door speakers standard. Someone replaced the stereo with a so-so Pioneer AM/FM/CD unit, which is a single DIN size as opposed to the factory double DIN size, thus an aftermarket pocket under the stereo.
The Pioneer does not have Bluetooth or any other features over the factory unit. I’m just not sure why anyone thought it was an upgrade, unless the factory stereo 1. died or 2. really sounded bad. For about $300.00, Crutchfield will sell you a double DIN touchscreen stereo with Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay, and two good door speakers, so that’s a likely project for me as well.
Some future article ideas in the making!
I guess the concept is OK but I really liked and hoped that the Smart Coupe had been brought here to the US…
We love our Smart 2014 Passion. We use it around town and have it set up to tow behind our Class A RV using a Blue Ox set up.
Thanks for sharing! Yes, I can’t wait to get the Blue Ox plate installed and get towing. I would love to work on it this weekend (I have everything ready to install) but my 18 year old has to work all weekend, and he wants to help.
Wonderful! The perfect toad, and a great compliment to your other cars. Thank you for putting the smart in its proper context. It failed in the US as there’s just no market for a true city car, and the market for toads is just a bit too small.
There was a Smart in my neighborhood. I was initially attracted to them but I felt that the mileage wasn’t high enough and the price was higher than what I would pay. I like small cars but small is a relative term. I had several Civics, Datsun Zs, a first gen Acura CL, and a SN95 Mustang. I’d thought about Geo Metros, which were used to flat tow behind behind some of my coworker’s motorhomes. The Smart is small but it still holds two passengers in comfort with some luggage space. Better than the motorcycles that I rode daily for 35 years. I’m sticking with my Mustang.
My overall mileage for my 2009 Passion is 42.6 MPG for 140,000 miles. I have never seen mileage as low as the EPA estimate.
Too expensive and not great gas mileage. One could buy a real car at the same price, or even less, that got similar mileage. About the only place these things make any kind of sense would be in crowded cities. (Easy to park, like an Isetta.)
In some Italian cities the Smart cars we saw were land yachts.
So to speak.
Being a fairly ecologically minded person, I was excited about the Smart when back when they were first announced. But the fuel economy was my biggest disappointment with them and the reason I never actually considered one. If you can get a much more practical Civic or similar that gets mileage almost as good, there isn’t really any value proposition for the Smart.
They also require (or at least required) premium gas too, which also made it a hard sell against something like a Yaris if you were buying for fuel economy.
I remember seeing these somewhat often when they first came to the US. They seem to be a lot more rare now.
“EPA gas mileage ratings of 34mpg city, 38mpg highway, 36mpg combined”
What is it getting in the real world? 34mpg city is pretty good for a non-hybrid. There have been several in my inner-city neighborhood and it’s fun watching them snatching parking spaces that a Fit or Prius can’t get into.
I actually have made no effort up to now to check the mileage with a pencil and paper. There is no MPG readout on the dash. I’m going to get my turn to drive it some next week, and I’ll check it then.
And yes, the parking is another key selling point for me. There is no parking at some of these state and national parks we have been going to, unless you can snag a space between two cars, or at the end of a row, that the smart would slot into!
These drivers got between 36 and 43 MPG in a ’13. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=32357
I used to see one of the early ones, in bright yellow, running around locally, haven’t seen it in a while though. Did not make sense for running around out here, though maybe they did take it into the city.
I figured they would be fairly fun to drive in a go cart kind of way, being so small and light.
It sounds like a great choice for a toad. The only problem I see it that you won’t be able to see it when towing it unless you are taking a real tight turn. It being so light may also cause such a small difference in how the MH drives also making it disappear from your thoughts.
I’m pretty sure they went with an automated manual for the same reason so many mfgs are doing the dual clutch automated manuals. #1. It has the lower frictional losses than a traditional or CVT automatic. #2. it is cheaper than a traditional auto or CVT. #3. it is lighter and more compact than those other shiftless options. #4 lighter and cheaper than a dual clutch automated manual.
I rented a 2017 Smart (the newer generation) when I was in San Francisco last summer and was surprised by how much I enjoyed the experience. There was plenty of room inside for two fairly large adults, and enough luggage space for a five-day trip.
It felt like a much bigger car than it actually was when driving, partly because it’s not actually all that narrow (it’s almost an inch and a half (35 mm) wider than a Fiat 500, which itself is a full three feet (almost a metre) longer than the Smart. That is, until you turned around to look behind you and realized you could easily reach back and touch the rear glass.
The newer generation ditched the finicky automated manual for a more-well-regarded dual-clutch unit (a conventional manual was also available): it wasn’t the smoothest car I’ve ever driven, but it didn’t have any of the herky-jerky motions that seem to have plagued earlier Smarts.
The engine was plenty zippy for running around the city, and the ride and noise, though not superb, were very tolerable, even on a trip across the bay. The steering was catastrophically numb, but then again what steering isn’t these days? It was at least direct and fairly precise.
But the Smart’s form factor is undoubtedly its biggest selling point. It was amazing to be able to squeeze into tight parking spots in a crowded city that no other car would dare approach. San Francisco even has quite a few tiny parking spaces between driveways that are just long enough to accommodate a Smart, and nothing else (save a motorcycle): no parallel parking needed, and very little competition for the spots.
And the 23-foot (7-metre) turning circle was absolutely extraordinary: it was no problem to quickly pull a U-turn in the middle of almost any street, which made maneuvering even more of a cinch.
But in the United States, land designed around the automobile, most people don’t need to put such a premium on the Smart’s small size. It only really makes sense in congested cities (like San Francisco). But for that purpose, it’s exceptional. And I really would consider purchasing one if I lived in such a city (the electric version is especially enticing — its short 57-mile range wouldn’t be an issue in town).
Plus, there’s something unquantifiably enjoyable about driving around in a car that’s half the length of a Ford Ranger. I had a smile on my face almost the entire week when I was at the wheel.
Great review. Thank you. These were very popular in Canada when they first came on the market about 15 years ago. The kind of chic popularity the PT Cruiser enjoyed at first. For a few years, you saw the first generation version everywhere. But the novelty faded, and many realized more practical cars could be found elsewhere. They are relatively rare now. Some have caught fire, as Transport Canada (DOT equivalent) was investigating.
As cities attempt to create more open spaces, this small scale of transportation concept won’t go away. It will make a comeback, in a more efficient form. I thought the packaging on these were great.
We owned one for about seven years. After the kids grew up we sold the 200k mile Previa, I got a newer Odyssey for work and trips and she got a new Smart. She absolutely adored the car, named it Hercules, and would giggle every time she got in. Perfect for her 8 mile commute, easy to park and maneuver, gas mileage seemed high 30’s. After she passed away a few years ago it went to her sister who continues to adore it.
My take was that it had remarkable interior room for two people and a weeks worth of groceries. Surprisingly comfortable at freeway speeds but didn’t like crosswinds, and potholes would loosen your fillings. The slow shifting transmission was an irritation to me, but she didn’t mind. We were told that the tire sizes were narrow in front and wider at the rear so the car would purposely understeer and not trip on the front wheels in a sharp turn.
The dealer put on a Smarty Party with a 40 car parade through town full of smiles and waves. She won a door prize- a choice between a full set of panels in the color of her choice (change the color of the car in a couple of hours) or a GPS/bluetooth/handsfree/USB/CD upgrade. She chose the electronics but I think the GPS was never used, probably because the text prompts were in Swedish and we couldn’t figure out how to switch to English.
Lots of fun but she loved it more than I did. I still have the Odyssey and added a Miata last year which suits me just fine.
We rented one in Greece for a week. We ordered a small car, but when we got there, the Smart was all they had on the lot. Two extra-large Americans with two full-size suitcases. We were on a tight schedule, so we had to make it work. The car had a cabrio roof and the second suitcase would only fit with the roof down and sticking out the back, with my wife holding the handle the entire way, lest it fly out. That’s how we had to drive to and from the airport, taking it in stride as part of the adventure. Once we left the luggage at the hotel, the Smart was a fun little runabout, though definitely underpowered and excruciatingly slow on hills. In that setting, I see the Smart as basically an upgrade from a Vespa type scooter. Basic transportation, plus a roof and two comfortable seats. Any more than that, and one needs a real car.
I have long believed that every car in a multi-car family should serve a need not served by another vehicle. This one fills a niche perfectly. I think a problem you could add when addressing their low popularity is that not enough multi-car households think this way, and perhaps also that someone needs at least two and maybe three other cars before you get to the niche this one is good at.
I loved your picture of the Smart and the camper – the biggest and littlest Mercedes!
Smart Roadster – latter day Midget?
That’s actually a Roadster Coupé – the Roadster (pic attached) had a notchback. I liked these, but they were pricey and apparently leaked badly resulting in fried electrics. I haven’t seen one in London in several years now.
I was so happy to see this review. What a quirky car. I’ve been curious about them for awhile, it seemed like the bare minimum to house two people and a bag within a metal cage and get them down the road. There is something I respect about that. Sized just right to be the escape pod from your motorhome. The relatively poor mpg always surprised me, particularly the in-town figure, but compared to the motorhome or Suburban…
BTW, your explanation of the automated manual and how to drive it properly is nice to see. From what I recall, most reviewers just griped about the shift quality and left the impression that nothing could be done about it.
Years ago I remember (though now fuzzy) reading/watching a review on a Greyhound bus size RV with an enclosed Smart car storage compartment in front of the rear axles. The car was stored parallel to the rear axles.
Anyone else remember?
I have seen that somewhere as well. I also researched a “toy hauler” Class A RV. This is the slippery slope that RV owners find themselves on……..
A toy hauler has a big ramp at the rear that lowers, and you can drive motorcycles, golf carts, ATVs, etc. in and out for travel.
As you might imagine, the smart would fit nicely in the back of a toy hauler. But, the “bedroom” in these is a loft bed above the garage space. Closed off from the garage, but still built above it. Class A’s are also going to a bed that power lowers from above the “front” seats. So you’re close to the roof either way. I’m not a big person, but somewhat claustrophobic, and the thought of not being able to sit upright in bed is a deal breaker for me.
there are some companies that make 5th wheel haulers out of big rigs that store a smart behind the cab and in front of the hitch.
http://www.jackdanmayer.com/
Very enjoyable review – and congratulations – sounds like the perfect car for your family.
Though they aren’t imported to the states, I have to say I think the Japanese do small cars better with their “kei” series. The interior space they can carve out is amazing and there are now hybrid versions that can get up to 75 mpg.
I’ll just leave this here. (If it will load). It’s the last smart car I’ve seen recently
Many here have commented on the SUV and CUV of today being the modern shape of what a 4 door car was in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The smart reminds me of the tall “telephone booth” coupes from the teens. What’s old is new again.
“If you just need cheap wheels, the same money would get you a good low mileage Sonic, Spark, or Versa Note, with a back seat, and more cargo room.”
Did you do any research on finding a manual Spark? TBH, that’s what I would have looked for as a toad. I think this is the primary reason the smart sold poorly (BTW, the last smarts sold in the US were EV-only, if that means anything). That manual/automatic didn’t do the smart any favors, either.
The smart was an extremely narrow-focused niche vehicle. The main market was for well-off urban dwellers who could afford city parking and wanted the smallest weather-tight vehicle they could get to be able to travel at will. Not a big demographic in the United States, I would think (certainly not like tight European cities), when most urbanites just use public transportation, be it the bus, subway, or cab.
But if I good deal could be had on a smart, that’s not a bad choice for RV towing. Really, anything approaching ‘kei’ car size that could be flat-towed would be fine. I would think the primary criteria would simply be finding something small and lightweight at the right price.
And I really like these RV-oriented articles. Well-written means they’re good, interesting reading, regardless of how one feels about the RV lifestyle.
Actually, when we arrived at Jacksonville, the CarMax had a 2015 Chevy Sonic, low miles, 5 speed stick, for the same price, parked beside the smart in the “small car” row. So we got to compare them on the lot. We didn’t drive the Sonic, as it was less suited to our needs. In particular, the squeezing into compromised parking spots.
But, we both agreed that if we were there for an “everyday” car more than a “toad”, the Sonic would be a no-brainer for the same year, similar miles, and same price.
There used to be a video on the Webb of a Smart crashing into a barrier at 70 mph.
The result was no damage into the passenger compartment and the door opened as though there had been no impact at all.
It’s still there, the impact damaged the passenger compartment significantly and while the door opened it did so barely. Still, impressively stout safety cage. The IIHS ran one of these into a Merc C class about 10 years ago, head on, each doing 35 or 40mph. That Mercedes punted the Smart out of the way like a football, but again the passenger compartment was surprisingly intact. I believe they found fatal deceleration forces on the dummy, though. Only so much can be done with such a short crush zone and light weight.
The smart seems to be the right fit for your family’s needs.
My first smart sighting was during my first trip to Germany in 1999. I feel in love with the little car’s space utilization, how easy it looked to park and it’s quirky cool vibe. I still admired the smart while on other European trips, but when it was introduced in the US in 2008 my love affair ended. It was incredibly popular in Chicago a year or two after it’s introduction, but to me it never looked right on American roads. While I like smaller cars it’s funny how some just seem to small – I wouldn’t rent a 3 cylinder GEO Metro in Kansas City once, because I planned to do a lot of highway driving.
It’s interesting how some cars are incredibly popular at their introduction like the smart, but then fizzle out. The AMC Pacer, Pontiac Fiero, the new VW Beetle & Fiat 500, and to a lesser degree the Mini come to mind.
We had one! Living in San Francisco, though we’re both car nuts, we honestly bought the smart to *not* drive. It is such a brilliant car when you’re not using it that it made sense and it was right outside when you needed to scoot around town. Parking in spots only scooters could use before, we loved that side of it. Ours was loaded with the moonroof, heated leather seats, cd player and it worked well. Further on the SF experience, our favorite bar has a salty crew of truely ancient drag queens. One of them lived just a few blocks from the bar but wanted a ride home, since we were “rich” –knowing we owned our own car. (Please apply irony, liberally). My partner joked, “come on Collette, we’ll put you in the back of the Town Car.” She came out expecting a “nice” car to see the smart car and said, “THAT’S your car??? That’s a CLOWN car not a TOWN car!” And yes, she folded into the “way back” with no issue at all. So, for a town car it was a blast. It truly got terrible mpg, especially with hills but despite its imperfection, it served a purpose well. Shortly after we got it, we heard we had a grandkid coming so it went away to be replaced with a used E46 BMW wagon which we kept for 15 or so years. A brilliant car but who cares? Have some fun with clown/town/smart/dumb car!
living in manhattan, i actually do have a strong “use case” for a smart. i’m surprised they aren’t more common here. the one thing that terrifies me is the idea of driving one on a highway. it’s now officially on my empty nester daydream list along with the jdm suzuki capacino!
I have not driven it on the interstate yet, but my wife drove it back from Jacksonville, FL, about 450 miles. She started out leading the way, but I couldn’t keep up with her in the RV on I-95. She said there was lots of road noise at 80mph, but “it’s really zippy once it gets going”.
In my entire recent 6,700 mile trip across the USA, I saw exactly two smarts: one in front of me in downtown San Francisco, and one flew past me on I-80 in Iowa.
BUT, here’s the kicker: since bring our smart home to our small town of about 17,000 people, we have seen two others here in town. One white with a black stripe (meaning it is a base “Pure”) and another identical to ours, a white Passion with silver stripe (you could get the stripe/metal cage painted lots of colors on the Passion). My wife pulled over to take picture of the identical Passion, and he pulled over too. I think he was just as surprised.
The Smart was an interesting idea. The gas mileage was too low and the premium gas requirement made it expensive. You could get a Honda Fit and get a car with almost the same gas mileage, 4 seats and luggage space. My cousin had one. She once parked it “nose in” in front front of a Chevy Suburban in a parallel parking area. She got a parking ticket.
I have a 2013 Passion Cabrio. “Baby George”, named by my granddaughter. I love that car! I had a 2009 cabrio years ago. Family changes ended up having to sell it. I wanted a bit newer model when i finally found this 2013 but nothing was available. I wish they still sold them here in the USA. I prefer gas for longer trips. It’s so much fun to drive in the mountains on curvy roads! No way could you do that with an EV.
I would rather go for an 1970 Imperial 2 dr hard top. Approximately the same interior space as the Smart.
Daughter has one of these. Fuel mileage is good, car was less then half the price of a Prius, the main benefit is the SIZE, it fits in where almost nothing else will. You will see them in Germany backed into the curb instead of parallel parked and two will fit in the space of one stall and you don’t need the room to get in and out of the spot. There was a photo years back purported to be a smart car crushed between two dump trucks, except the lone wheel that has visible wasn’t a three lug wheel, obvious fake. Fake News before we new there was such a thing.
https://www.microcar.org/blog/2009/08/this-is-not-a-smart-car/
Anyone who says the ride of a Gen 2 Fortwo is “supple” is smoking some serious weed. We owned one for three years, and without a doubt, the car’s achilles heel is a very crushing ride — driving one in anything resembling a commute requires avoiding anything resembling a bump, crack, pothole, uneven spot, pavement rupture, dip, crack, depression, fracture, cavity, rut, pit, gap, fracture… my back hurts just thinking about driving that car — which we sold for a Fiat 500. The Fiat felt like a Bentley Continental after driving the Fortwo… which, for the record, we actually loved.
I’ve owned 2 smarts. The first was a white passion, which saved my life when a full-size pickup clipped me on the right rear side at highway speeds. Smart: totalled, after ending up crashed into the concrete divider; me: seat belt bruises, a cut on my head, and a bruise on my leg.
The used Cabrio I bought with the insurance proceeds is fun to drive (I should have bought a convertible years ago!), easy to park, and gets about 36mpg winter, 38-42 summer. I’d like better, but real world mileage doesn’t get much better on non-hybrids (as someone else mentioned).
My 2008 still runs great, but if I can get my condo association to allow putting in a charging station, I’d like to find a newer electric Cabrio. That would be perfect for my 15 mile each way commute!
Good to see someone else enjoying a fortwo. I have a 09 passion cabriolet Brabus. I absolutely LOVE. I drive 32 miles one way to work on the beltway in Maryland doing 70-75 to keep up with traffic and I still get 40mpg. Wouldn’t trade it for anything !
Very nice to see a Brabus! I started to mention more about the Brabus version(s) but couldn’t find much good information about them. Is yours a turbo? That was one point on which I found conflicting information, i.e. whether all Brabuses (Brabii?) are turbos or not.
I bought a new 2009 Smart Car Passion Convertible in 2010. It now has just over 165000 miles on it. Love it!! The most fun I have, is when a car on the freeway, pulls up behind me flashing lights, hinting for me to pull to the right. I bait them, slow down a bit, wait for them to come around on the right. As they come around, drop a gear and speed up, leaving them behind. Would love their thoughts! Ran out by a Smart Car!!! Another story involves, the time I got pulled over by a State Patrolmen doing 94mph. He couldn’t believe it!. We chatted, and cited me for 10 over. Nice Guy!!
I own a 2015 passion that runs on gas. I absolutely love it. I got it in 2016 with only nine thousand miles and paid $7,000. I have the heated leather seats, upgraded radio GPS Bluetooth, and owned it over a year before I even knew there was a compartment for storage in the part of the hatchback that folds down. I was watching a YouTube about our options for a flat tire when it was mentioned and I’m like oh wow how fantastic is that. My car had been part of the fleet called car2go and New York City and it was in mint condition and I thought where else can I get a brand new car with air conditioning and all this for $7,000 you can’t go wrong. I guess I’ve always liked little cars in 1977 I bought that real tiny Honda Civic and then later bought a 1997 Geo metro that I drove for 15 years and loved that car but I had to sell it because the check engine light has been on for 3 years and I was moving to Atlanta where they have emissions checked every year. so I got the smart car as my second car when I move to Atlanta cuz my 06 PT cruiser is really getting terrible gas mileage but I do still love that car. So anytime I have a third passenger or a large object I’ll take the PT cruiser. Now the smart car has a tiny triangular rearview mirror which I bought a very large snap-on wide view and it really helps the blind spot over your left shoulder. Yes it’s a bit noisy and yes you feel every bump in the road but I’m getting great gas mileage and I can park anywhere. it does not have a glove compartment just a little shelf in front of the passenger so I picked up a kids soft sided lunch bag with Star wars on it and everything you would keep in your glove box I just zip it up in that little lunch bag and nobody’s ever broken in the car to steal it I guess they think it’s my bologna sandwich. Because if I didn’t have everything in there it would just all come flying into the passenger’s lap if I hit the brakes real hard. I’m retired and my PT cruiser has a hundred and thirty thousand miles and my smart car has 30000 miles so I don’t see myself shopping for a car for at least 8 years I can put some serious money in the bank. well you know the expression shop till you drop but that’s not really how it goes you shop and tell your smart car gets full and then you go home and unload it and start shopping again. That’s what happened to me at Christmas.
You may want to check out ( if you haven’t already) the smart car of America forum on potential issues with flat towing. I’m on my second used smart, now an electric, and have driven them for the past 10 years. I’m now in my late 60’s and these have been the most enjoyable cars I’ve ever owned.
Thanks for sharing your experience and the tip!
I’m amazed at the all the owners who came out to comment here. And thanks for a thorough review that puts the car into an interesting context. I recall seeing a smart at the visitor center in Canyonlands National Park in Utah, last year, covered in road grime and with a license plate from half the continent away. I was really impressed that the elderly owners had driven it so far; now I realize it probably arrived there behind an RV.
I really love my smart car, but whare can i get it serviced ?
Well, that’s a good question. I use a local Mercedes dealer for my RV which is on a Sprinter chassis. They are a Sprinter dealer too, and they WERE a smart dealer too. When I take the RV in next week for the 40,000 mile service, I am going to ask them if they still service smarts. I assume they can still perform all the services. I think my AC could be a little cooler, and I’d like them to look at it.
Not all Mercedes dealers were smart dealers, but I would start by checking with all the Mercedes dealers in your area. There’s three Mercedes dealers near me, but only the one is a Sprinter dealer, and they were the only smart dealer.
As far as maintenance parts and filters, I tried WalMart, AutoZone, Advance Auto, and O’Reilly in my small town, and they had none of the filters or spark plugs for a smart. So using a local oil change place for routine maintenance may be an issue, unless you are willing to order the filters and take them with you. The oil filter in my smart is stamped CarQuest, so they apparently have some smart filters. But I don’t have a CarQuest near me. The oil is clean and CarMax claims they always change the oil, so I guess they obtained that filter.
I ordered a genuine smart oil filter, cabin filter, engine air filter and spark plugs from http://www.autohausaz.com, which I have used for years and highly recommend. They even phoned me when processing my online order, to make sure I knew they had the genuine smart spark plugs I ordered, but also had the same plug cross indexed as a Mitsubishi plug, for a fraction of the price. I have always had good outcomes with ordering from http://www.rockauto.com too.
Most places like Jiffy Lube, etc., will install your air filters for a few bucks or for an oil filter you bring, they’ll take $5 off the oil change package price.
If you are at all handy, the smart website has illustrated instructions on how to change all the filters, the oil, and the spark plugs. There’s also lots of smart owner-posted videos on YouTube.
I did the cabin filter (which was super dirty) without any tools. It’s against the firewall, the access door is behind the accelerator. I did the engine air filter (which was clean) using just a couple of tools. The smart instructions have you remove the entire bellows and resonator assembly, but I got by without doing all that.
Engine oil and spark plugs look super easy, I haven’t done them yet though.
For brakes, which would be the next most common need, I am going to assume ordering the parts from Autohausaz or RockAuto and taking the parts to your local tire place is going to be the way to go. If you have a good local, family owned tire/oil/brake place, they would be someone to get to know. I have had great luck with my mom & pop tire place. They have exhibited great patience with old cars, including my Jag XJ-SC brakes, which a lot of people just won’t touch.
Last tidbit and then I’ll shut up: The smart uses a very odd/rare (for the USA) size. http://www.tirerack.com has them as the factory Continental as well as a Kumho, and will ship them to a local shop of your choice. I usually use http://www.tirebuyer.com, and love their choices and prices, but that may be a regional thing, I’m not sure. It’s ATD or American Tire Distributors and they also ship free to the local installer of your choice. They have the Contis for the smart.
With my first smart (pre-crash), I asked a local independent repair shop we had used for a while, and they bought the smart repair manual. They’ve done all the normal maintenance; I’ve gone back to Mercedes only for recalls.
IIRC, most if not all Saturns were good for flat towing, as even the automatic models would circulate transmission fluid if left in N.
“I have shoes bigger than this car.”–Arnold Schwarzenegger.
https://www.facebook.com/sportsnation/videos/353495988888714/?app=fbl
One of the more interesting ways to haul a Smart is in the back of a Class A motorhome with a mid engine chassis.
I never wanted a smart because early road tests slated the driving experience and the sales rep in Portland looked blank when I asked what was the value proposition of a $14000 smart over a $14000 Honda Fit.