1224 kilometres have piled on to GoodCarBadCar's new long-termer, the smart fortwo. Trimmed as a base model (Pure) with air-con and zero other options, the fortwo has been a revealing experience for The Good Car Guy so far. Yesterday marked the one month mark. Read the Top 5 Smart Fortwo Revelations below; the five most consequential smart car did-not-know-before-buying facts that you get to know before buying.
-----
#5- SMART'S NEED TO BE BROKEN IN: As can be easily seen at FuelTheSmart, our fortwo pure's fuel economy is improving slowly but surely. That comes with the territory in cars that hadn't previously travelled more than 3 kilometres at speeds any higher than 3 kmh. More telling is the shifting and power. Third gear is becoming far more of an all-around speed than I previously thought possible; lugging from low revs to sprinting at high speeds.
#4- EVERY OTHER CAR IS HUGE: During two smart fortwo test drives - in each generation of smarts - every other car appeared gigantic and it was... humorous. For one thing, height is never the issue. In a fortwo, the occupants look down on most cars. Yet on those test drives, this feeling exhibited itself as a novelty. Now there's the occasional moment where I nearly blurt out, "Is that bus going to stop or what?", despite the fact that Mr. Bus Driver is slowly coming to a halt at a red light. It's got nothing to do with safety - I know we're protected. But everything else is so LARGE.
#3- POWER IS SATISFACTORY: My heretical viewpoint of the week came out in the Porsche 911 Turbo article posted here. Nevertheless, it seems there's another opinion about to be spewed out which thousands of car lovers will hate. Horsepower is overrated. Wait! Horsepower is only overrated when drivers make no use of their horsepower. How many grandfathers in their 268-bhp Camrys rev their V6 above 4000 rpm? If our fortwo needs to squirt out of a right-turn-only lane into the left lane just as the light turns green and a 335i driver is beside me, I squirt. No worries. How so? The 335i driver doesn't make use of half his 300 horsepower. In other words, the smart fortwo's 70 horsepower does just fine.... almost all the time.
#2- PEOPLE LIKE SMART DRIVERS: I drove one of the first smart fortwos in Canada in 2004. Equipped with a diesel-sipping... er, diesel, the first fortwo was a riot. Everybody turned and stared; and stared some more. People honked and hooted. The honking and hooting has levelled off. With the windows down, I still hear kids shout to their mothers, "Look, there's a smart car". People in SUVs sometimes wave politely. Small town dwellers ask lots of questions. It seems as though they think I'm a nicer guy because I drive a happy car.
#1- CRUISING AT 110 KMH IS HARD: 110 kilometres per hour, or 68mph, is the general posted speed limit on divided highways in Canada. Maintaining that speed is very difficult in the smart. Our fortwo pure always surges to about 118 without the driver realizing what happened. Yes, it's just a gearing "thing". It's still ironic that the least powerful car on sale in this continent desperately wants to go faster than the maximum legal speed.
The most powerful of vw Beetles put out less than 50 horses. Clearly the world wants for too much. Millions of people in North America and around the world were content with the Beetle. why do we need 268 horsepower camries now? the 70 horse smart seems fine.
ReplyDeleteHad my smart for about 18 months now - I think its the best vehicle I've ever owned. It does exactly what I need a car to do - and no more. I wish more of the boat driving public would wise up.
ReplyDeleteGreat site BTW
The smart car sucks. Mine has needed a tremendous amount of maintenance and the parts are expensive and hard to get so your car is out of commission along time ano
ReplyDelete