So one of the things i did in my recent jaunt down to Salt Lake City was take a brief test drive in a smart car.
I really wish i could report nothing but good things… but alas reality intrudes.
Couple of things you may not know: The Smart is a rear engine, rear-wheel drive car. It has all the “safety” crap that Americans seem to demand from their cars: anti-lock brakes, numerous explosive devices (aka ‘airbags’), etc. Smarts are all over Europe… but of course there they come with a turbo-diesel engine that gets outstanding fuel milage and similar performance to the gas only version (made by Mitsubishi) available here. The engine is accessed by a hatch that is very small. For anything besides an oil change i suspect the engine/transaxle will need to be dropped. But to do that probably takes four bolts and five minutes. While the engine is in the rear the radiator and a/c condenser are in the front making for long hoses and thus possible added points of failure. All fluids besides engine oil are added in the front.
The Good: Once inside and actually driving, aside from a fairly harsh suspension (one might be charitable and call it ‘sporty’), the car feels completely “normal.” There is a perfectly fine amount of interior room for two people. The headroom is excellent and the all glass roof makes for a really pleasant, bright, interior. There is a fabric screen that covers the entire glass panel for those Boise sunny days. Engine noise is pronounced, but not unpleasant. The little car reaches highway speed well and once there holds it easily… and even at 70 mph the car feels remarkably “big” and comfortable. The car i was in didn’t have a tachometer and i suspect the sales guy was coming close to redline as we accelerated onto I15. Driving position is comfortably high and the visibility is very good. As you might suspect the turning circle is better than a golf cart and you can park the thing in a space too small for a motorcycle.
That’s pretty much it for the good.
The Bad: The engine/drivetrain is disappointing. The throttle is, unintentionally, an on/off switch and the odd manual/automatic gearbox is mushy and imprecise to say the least. In “auto” mode the engine slogs from gear to gear while you just keep your foot solidly on the floor. In “manual” mode you can slap the gearshift or tap one of the paddles on the steering wheel to change gears… but all that does is let you select when the sloggish shift actually occurs. The little engine produces 70 horsepower, which for a vehicle this light should be fine, but the terrible transmission/shifting arrangement make it seem woefully underpowered. Running the air conditioner robs even more power and cuts the already unremarkable (for a pint-sized two-seater) gas milage by up to 5 mpg.
The interior is 100% plastic and the knobs and switches feel like they’ll fall off if you stare at them. The door panels are hard textured plastic and the arm rests are hard as cement.
The warranty is paltry – 2 years/24,000 miles and major service must be done at a Smart dealer to remain in warranty.
Then there’s the price: you can hit $18,000 before tax for the convertible.
With gas prices hitting all-time highs and Smart requiring premium gasoline this iteration of the Smart Car is anything but smart. It is not a solution… it is an overpriced status toy to make hipsters feel better about themselves while flitting about. I can hear the chatter over lattes now: “I drive a Smart, i’m saving the earth.”
I once owned a “Chevy” Sprint (also a three-cylinder, 1,000 CC engine powered two door made by Suzuki) that got much better gas milage, felt much more nimble and made it well over 100,000 miles before we sold it. The Sprint later morphed into the Geo Metro which also got better gas milage than the Smart.
Bottom line: If the Smart’s price point was 50% what it currently is i would at least call it a decent value, but when you combine the cheap feel and the less than spectacular fuel economy with the current price tag you get a neither-here-nor-there vehicle that looks incredibly cute, but doesn’t really solve all that much. I’d rather take $18,000 and buy a really good BMW motorcycle, two “jesse” bags and a set of racing leathers. I would enjoy better fuel milage, much better performance, and about the same cargo capacity.