smart car tuning

[Vincent Waldon]

The one I was in was also modded

The conversation I keep having is that for the amount of money spent on a single Smart car I could buy a couple of diesel NA Golfs and a lifetime's worth of diesel for both of them.   With a little tuning they can get pretty great mileage, space for 4 people, the dog, groceries... parts are likely way cheaper, and almost as easy to park.  

Not as much of a chick magnet, admittedly.    :wink:

[burn_your_money]

The only reason I would buy one would be to put the engine in a 4 wheeler or something of the likes

[OM617]

But I imagine OM617 did his test drive in Colo at 6000' elevation. That's a lot less air for an NA Diesel, so a lot less power than at sea level.

It was a turbo g@sser so elevation shouldn't matter once the turbo kicks in.

[malone]

Does anyone know where to get a chip and injectors for a canadian diesel smart car in ontario? thanks

RedRotors (www.mikrotuning.com) might be able to tune Smarts, but he's in Quebec.

Other chip tuners like Unitronic or Upsolute may be in your area.

[myke_w]

the company estimates a combined city/highway fuel mileage of about 40 miles per gallon, according to DaimlerChrysler. (The 60 mpg figure sometimes reported is for the diesel-engine version.)

So not really much if any better than a TDI with twice the room.

Damn skippy, my wife's mk3 alh with pp520's just returned a 49.5 mpg average and that's combined :shock:

That's the first tank after a rering too.

No way you'd get me in a car on our roads when I can get great mileage out of a way larger, way roomier, way safer car.

OTOH, if I lived in Europe...

[molgrips]

The Smart diesel in the UK is rated at 84 UK mpg or 71 US mpg in the combined cycle in the UK Govt tests, which is typically comparable with what you might get in real driving (at least, it has been in the cars I've owned, with a combination of city and town driving).  It's also rated at 90g/km CO2, which makes it the lowest CO2 emitting car on the road, by a good 10%.

That beats the crap out of even modern VW group diesels I'm afraid.  Sure, you can get say 55 uk mpg out of a Skoda Octavia, which is way bigger, but if you want max fuel economy then the Smart is a great place to start.

And don't think that small = unsafe.  That's not the case.

PLUS in addition to the engine emissions being the lowest around, the car takes very little energy to actually make.  Which means that it's probably the greenest car going by a long way.

Having said that, I haven't seen the HC, NOx and SO2 emission figures

[OM617]

Its definitely NOT a "green" car since its a throwaway piece of junk not built to last.

[jtanguay]

well just get a vw lupo and enjoy 80 mpg or so...  probably wayyyyyyyyyy cheaper at the same time  :wink:

[zukgod1]

The one I was in was also modded

Oh see, the truth comes out.  

[molgrips]

Its definitely NOT a "green" car since its a throwaway piece of junk not built to last.

Evidence of this?  It's made by that well known crap car manufacturer, Mercedes.

probably wayyyyyyyyyy cheaper at the same time

No, they're not.  Smart are cheaper and more economical - sorry!

[zukgod1]

Those damn Smart cars are selling for $25k + here...

not a chance in hell. I'll go get a new TDI for $30k and haul the fam in comfort.



I do really like the Smarts though. It's a really good idea the we need.
If there is even just a few people that jump in one of those vs a huge SUV there will be some Green savings somewhere.

We as die hard TD guys have an unfair advantage though. We are mostly used to 40+mpg where as most of the US (and other countries?) are used to the low 20's..

[molgrips]

They're £9k here, for the nice one, £7k for the basic one - those are list prices for the petrols.

For that kind of money you could have got the Smart roadster - brilliant car.  Basically a go cart with a roof.

[clbanman]

http://cambridge.kijiji.ca/c-ViewAd?AdId=84432870

[houseofdiesel]

Real driving fuel economy for the diesel 450 (first gen) is 80-90mpg (3L/100km range), 100mpg is very easy. I can get 3L/100km out of an old worn out TDI Passat, however going much slower. The smart gets about 25% better economy over a manual tdi (scan guage reports), almost 50% better then our automatic tdi...our smart only has 5000kms so far, can't wait for it to break in and get some real fuel economy.
Yes the plastic is cheap, but so are most new cars out there. It doesn't ride all that great on rough roads, but it does corner and handle very well, and winter traction is awesome! Will it last, why not everything is plastic and the entire underbody is covered with plastic so I don't think rust will be an issue and it is very well sprayed too. We'll see, I am hoping for minimum 500 000kms...

[molgrips]

I'd like to see how that goes houseofdiesel.

I dunno if you'll have this issue though but a mate of mine has a petrol Smart, must be about 5 years old now, and it uses these metric tyre sizes that are hard to get over here and are hence about £150 each for a tiny tyre!

Smart is a great thing I reckon.  The industry needs innovation even if the original idea doesn't work out.  Other manufacturers have had to respond to the Smart both in terms of engineering and innovations for the driver and passengers (not things that the US car industry is very good at!) which has given rise to stuff like the Fiat 500 and so on.

Bring on the electric Smart, I say