I originally had a very early LHD Smart Fourtwo, ran it for a year and really enjoyed it apart from the size of the fuel tank.
Having just taken a job traveling 112 miles into London and back everyday, there was really only one car on the list.
The first question was what engine ? A quick trawl of the forum quickly identified that CDi was the way for me to go !
So after much internet searching I found a 13 reg Fortwo Pulse CDi with delivery mileage for nearly half list price from Smart in York.
After a train ride up to York I drove the car 239 miles home, the first thing that struck me was the rpm that the engine changes up gear when in Auto mode ?
Many of the forums say that the only way to drive the diesel is to change manually, because it revs the engine nearly to max in each gear in Auto.
Well this one doesn't, it changes up gears at about 1,500 rpm even into 5th gear, if fact I sometimes use manual to stop it laboring !
Again after much forum viewing the first thing I did was order the MDC cruise control, for the many speed average sections of road I now drive along.
It arrived in 3 days from Germany and I fitted it last Monday night, the instructions are poor, the secondary connection to the speedo wiring loom is very poor (it can be connected the wrong way round and doesn't lock into position) and the Smart throttle cable wire is too short. But once fitted it works perfectly, no adjustments were needed, non of the reported surging up or down hills and makes my long distance driving much better.
Onto the subject of fuel economy, my journey is about 15 miles of 70mph motorway, 25 miles of 50mph motorway, 5 miles of queuing on the M11, then 50mph, 40mph and 30 mph limits with traffic lights and queuing.
My first tank full gave 81.68mpg and last night I filled up again and it was 82.24mpg, now this is not driving like a vicar, just looking ahead and trying not to use the brakes. The car will be traveling about 600 miles a week, so I'm hoping that traffic permitting the figures will improve as the mileage increases.
Oh and the only thing that annoys me is the **** radio reception ? An[IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]y ideas how I can stop it cutting out or going crackly on BBC stations ??
Having just taken a job traveling 112 miles into London and back everyday, there was really only one car on the list.
The first question was what engine ? A quick trawl of the forum quickly identified that CDi was the way for me to go !
So after much internet searching I found a 13 reg Fortwo Pulse CDi with delivery mileage for nearly half list price from Smart in York.
After a train ride up to York I drove the car 239 miles home, the first thing that struck me was the rpm that the engine changes up gear when in Auto mode ?
Many of the forums say that the only way to drive the diesel is to change manually, because it revs the engine nearly to max in each gear in Auto.
Well this one doesn't, it changes up gears at about 1,500 rpm even into 5th gear, if fact I sometimes use manual to stop it laboring !
Again after much forum viewing the first thing I did was order the MDC cruise control, for the many speed average sections of road I now drive along.
It arrived in 3 days from Germany and I fitted it last Monday night, the instructions are poor, the secondary connection to the speedo wiring loom is very poor (it can be connected the wrong way round and doesn't lock into position) and the Smart throttle cable wire is too short. But once fitted it works perfectly, no adjustments were needed, non of the reported surging up or down hills and makes my long distance driving much better.
Onto the subject of fuel economy, my journey is about 15 miles of 70mph motorway, 25 miles of 50mph motorway, 5 miles of queuing on the M11, then 50mph, 40mph and 30 mph limits with traffic lights and queuing.
My first tank full gave 81.68mpg and last night I filled up again and it was 82.24mpg, now this is not driving like a vicar, just looking ahead and trying not to use the brakes. The car will be traveling about 600 miles a week, so I'm hoping that traffic permitting the figures will improve as the mileage increases.
Oh and the only thing that annoys me is the **** radio reception ? An[IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]y ideas how I can stop it cutting out or going crackly on BBC stations ??
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