My smart cdi cabrio road test report
04-18-2004, 02:49 AM
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2005 smart cabrio; 2008 Mercedes-Benz B 200
My smart cdi cabrio road test report
My wife and I got back a few hours ago from Victoria where we test drove a smart fortwo cdi cabriolet. To recap, the smart will be introduced to the Canadian market in top range "passion" trim starting in September, starting at a price of $16,000 CDN for the glass-roofed hardtop and $20,000 CDN for the cabriolet. Unfortunately these cars will not be going to the USA. smart plans to introduce a small SUV there in two years...
For those who don't know about smart coming to Canada, go to www.thesmart.ca
It's a French-built car (Hambach, Alsace) and is part of the Mercedes-Benz car group of DaimlerChrysler. It's been in production since 1998. To date only about 700,000 have been made. They're 2.5 metres long and seat two, have an 800 cc direct injection turbo Diesel engine, 6 speed sequential manual gearbox, front McPherson struts, rear DeDion axle, mid-rear engine. There's a 135 km/h (84 MPH) governed top speed, up to 76 US MPG in the official test cycle.
So, I had driven two of these in 2002, though they were both equipped with the former 599 cc gasoline engine (that has now been superceded with a new, more robust, 700 cc version). In 2002, the gearbox took a little getting used to as there is no clutch pedal.
For 2003 the gearbox was improved, with better shifting software and shorter shift pauses. The car is rather like a Peugeot 404 with the rare "Jaeger Coupleur" semi-automatic, or perhaps a Dauphine with the "Ferlec" clutch or even a Citroën DS with the semi-automatic. Meaning that the clutch is actuated electronically, and so is the throttle (in both gas and Diesel versions).
So the first impression when sitting in this tiny car is that it is huge inside! It's not really wide, but the roof is high and the seats are high and the windscreen is as far away as it would be in a "mini"van. The seats are very comfortable. I am 6'3" and about 205 lbs at the moment (heh, early cycling season - I'll be under 195 in a couple of months) and with the top up the headroom is fine. I think someone up to about 6'7" would fit quite well. Above that, all bets are off ;-)
The cars to be sold in Canada are all supposedly going to be a variation of the "passion" specification, which includes leather shift knob, leather steering wheel, two-stage air conditioning, electric side mirrors, selectable "automatic" setting for the gearbox, alloy wheels. All smarts come with power windows, ABS, ESP, cornering brake control, anti-slip function (pseudo-LSD) for drive wheels, Brake Assist, two dual stage aurbags, pretensioning/load limiting seatbelts etc.
Anyway, the ignition switch is on the floor between the seats, which is like a SAAB and also makes sense in a small car for injury prevention purposes. You select "N" with the floor mounted shift lever and start the turbocharged mill. Then move the shift lever into the driving plane and choose the automatic shift program or manual sequential mode with a button on the shift lever. there is of course no clutch pedal - just hammer the gas pedal and you're off.
The thing about the servo-actuated clutch is that at first you're not sure whether to back off the gas pedal when the car is shifting/being shifted or not. I found that by doing this, the shift procedure is lengthened. It's better to keep your gas foot planted where it was before you (or the car, when in Auto mode) initiated the shift and the electronics will ease the throttle and clutch out and in appropriately, smoothing out the shifts nicely. In one sense you might wonder: why bother to have a complex drivetrain like this in a cheap car. But it's intended to be a city car so having an Automatic program is useful in heavy traffic.
And there was heavy traffic on Douglas Street in Victoria today on our way to the 8 km long freeway, so I used Auto and it was good. Once the traffic cleared up I switched to manual mode. You push the gear stick forward to shift up, and pull it back to choose a lower cog. The nice thing about manual mode is that you do not have to manually gear down when approaching a stop. Just leave the car in whatever gear it's in and it automatically shifts down to first when you stop and disengages the clutch. Or you can downshift when slowing to use the Diesel's considerable compression braking. C'est très simple et élégant, non?
The convertible roof is something else! It's fabric, electrically operated and there's a plastic rear window. You can open the roof in three ways: only partway, sort of like a Renault Fuego sunroof, roll it all the way back à la 2CV Citroën (both these can be done at speed), or go two steps further and disengage it from the removable roof bars that are above the doors, push it down at the back, take the bars off and put them in the trunk lid liner and voilà, a full convertible with a stout roll bar! Because the weather was iffy today, we drove it with the roof fully open but still "up" at the rear and with the roof bars in place in case a shower came by. with the roof closed, the car is reasonably quiet, with no wind noise and very little other noise, certainly quieter than the Renault 5 I used to have and about the same as the Peugeot 405. The Cd is 0.38, not great, but not bad for a rolling egg.
The engine is not unduly noisy either. That was the thing I mostly was wondering about, because I've not driven a direct injection Diesel before. It's easy to tell it's a Diesel from outside the car when it's at idle, though the noise is muted and could even be a slightly noisy gas engine (like a GM four-banger in a Cavalier). Above idle it's quiet enough to be anything. It's not as rev-happy as the 599 cc gas engine, nor does it sound like half a V-6 as the gas engine does, but that's OK.
As for the driving characteristics, the acceleration is strong when in the highest part of the torque band (generally 1500-3500 rpm). The redline is at 4200 rpm. The engine produces 40 net HP and has 75 lbs-ft of torque. The gear ratios are close and this is a good thing, because with the narrow operating range there is lots of shifting to be done at lower speeds. By the way, paddle shifters mounted on the steering wheel are optional, though the test car did not have them (D'oh!). I think this would be a useful option. The car has to make four gear changes to reach 100 km/h, so against the stopwatch the time is not at all impressive: 19.8 seconds. However, this car cannot be powershifted, and it's not like many cars today which have stupid second gear ratios so they can get to 60 MPH with only one gearchange, lowering the time to the bare minimum. In gear, I would say it goes very well indeed and has bags of torque for the car's 1600 lb kerb weight. I never felt unable to keep up with traffic and in fact was faster than much of it.
I took it up to an indicated 115 km/h (72 MPH) on a short section of freeway (Trans Canada Highway out of Victoria) and it was very stable, despite there being wind gusts. Once above about 95 km/h in 6th, the engine is in its peak torque range and it'll pull up hills easily in that gear. 5th is good for passing speeds and quick bursts of acceleration.
The steering is nice and light, non-assisted, though electric power steering is an option. Well, to me that owuld be overkill, unless fitting the car with the optional 175 F + 195 R tires. with the standard 145s (the 2003 test car I drove was on 135s front/175 rear) the steering is very light. Transitional response is good, and with ESP trickery up it's sleeve it'd be hard to get into too much trouble on the road.
In summary, it's a unique and cool little car! Everyone was gawking at it and I could see many people mouthing "what the hell is that?" when we were in traffic. Everyone who saw it had a smile on their faces. Especially kids and young women. It's nice to make people happy ;-)
I renewed my deposit with Three Point Motors for the smart following this test and I'm still number 27 on their list of more than 150 names. According to the salesman (generally a very reliable source) he says the demand for the car is hot and cold across the M-B dealer network. For example, there are 150 orders in Victoria, a city of about 300,000, 2 in Edmonton (a city of 800,000), two in Kelowna (~120,000), quite a few in North Vancouver byt almost none in Calgary (1 million). As for eastern Canada I can't be sure, but there should be a lot of interest in Ottawa, Toronto , Montréal and Québec. My dealer hopes to get an initial allocation of 80 units for the 2005 model year, which would put me into late 2004/early 2005 for delivery.
For those from the USA who might be interested in getting one, you can apparently order one if you have a mailing address/residence in Canada. If not, they won't sell it to you. The M-B USA dealer network will not be equipped to handle them so it would be an orphan situation. But the CDN M-B warranty is rather good and it'd be a shame to miss out on that.
Cheers
For those who don't know about smart coming to Canada, go to www.thesmart.ca
It's a French-built car (Hambach, Alsace) and is part of the Mercedes-Benz car group of DaimlerChrysler. It's been in production since 1998. To date only about 700,000 have been made. They're 2.5 metres long and seat two, have an 800 cc direct injection turbo Diesel engine, 6 speed sequential manual gearbox, front McPherson struts, rear DeDion axle, mid-rear engine. There's a 135 km/h (84 MPH) governed top speed, up to 76 US MPG in the official test cycle.
So, I had driven two of these in 2002, though they were both equipped with the former 599 cc gasoline engine (that has now been superceded with a new, more robust, 700 cc version). In 2002, the gearbox took a little getting used to as there is no clutch pedal.
For 2003 the gearbox was improved, with better shifting software and shorter shift pauses. The car is rather like a Peugeot 404 with the rare "Jaeger Coupleur" semi-automatic, or perhaps a Dauphine with the "Ferlec" clutch or even a Citroën DS with the semi-automatic. Meaning that the clutch is actuated electronically, and so is the throttle (in both gas and Diesel versions).
So the first impression when sitting in this tiny car is that it is huge inside! It's not really wide, but the roof is high and the seats are high and the windscreen is as far away as it would be in a "mini"van. The seats are very comfortable. I am 6'3" and about 205 lbs at the moment (heh, early cycling season - I'll be under 195 in a couple of months) and with the top up the headroom is fine. I think someone up to about 6'7" would fit quite well. Above that, all bets are off ;-)
The cars to be sold in Canada are all supposedly going to be a variation of the "passion" specification, which includes leather shift knob, leather steering wheel, two-stage air conditioning, electric side mirrors, selectable "automatic" setting for the gearbox, alloy wheels. All smarts come with power windows, ABS, ESP, cornering brake control, anti-slip function (pseudo-LSD) for drive wheels, Brake Assist, two dual stage aurbags, pretensioning/load limiting seatbelts etc.
Anyway, the ignition switch is on the floor between the seats, which is like a SAAB and also makes sense in a small car for injury prevention purposes. You select "N" with the floor mounted shift lever and start the turbocharged mill. Then move the shift lever into the driving plane and choose the automatic shift program or manual sequential mode with a button on the shift lever. there is of course no clutch pedal - just hammer the gas pedal and you're off.
The thing about the servo-actuated clutch is that at first you're not sure whether to back off the gas pedal when the car is shifting/being shifted or not. I found that by doing this, the shift procedure is lengthened. It's better to keep your gas foot planted where it was before you (or the car, when in Auto mode) initiated the shift and the electronics will ease the throttle and clutch out and in appropriately, smoothing out the shifts nicely. In one sense you might wonder: why bother to have a complex drivetrain like this in a cheap car. But it's intended to be a city car so having an Automatic program is useful in heavy traffic.
And there was heavy traffic on Douglas Street in Victoria today on our way to the 8 km long freeway, so I used Auto and it was good. Once the traffic cleared up I switched to manual mode. You push the gear stick forward to shift up, and pull it back to choose a lower cog. The nice thing about manual mode is that you do not have to manually gear down when approaching a stop. Just leave the car in whatever gear it's in and it automatically shifts down to first when you stop and disengages the clutch. Or you can downshift when slowing to use the Diesel's considerable compression braking. C'est très simple et élégant, non?
The convertible roof is something else! It's fabric, electrically operated and there's a plastic rear window. You can open the roof in three ways: only partway, sort of like a Renault Fuego sunroof, roll it all the way back à la 2CV Citroën (both these can be done at speed), or go two steps further and disengage it from the removable roof bars that are above the doors, push it down at the back, take the bars off and put them in the trunk lid liner and voilà, a full convertible with a stout roll bar! Because the weather was iffy today, we drove it with the roof fully open but still "up" at the rear and with the roof bars in place in case a shower came by. with the roof closed, the car is reasonably quiet, with no wind noise and very little other noise, certainly quieter than the Renault 5 I used to have and about the same as the Peugeot 405. The Cd is 0.38, not great, but not bad for a rolling egg.
The engine is not unduly noisy either. That was the thing I mostly was wondering about, because I've not driven a direct injection Diesel before. It's easy to tell it's a Diesel from outside the car when it's at idle, though the noise is muted and could even be a slightly noisy gas engine (like a GM four-banger in a Cavalier). Above idle it's quiet enough to be anything. It's not as rev-happy as the 599 cc gas engine, nor does it sound like half a V-6 as the gas engine does, but that's OK.
As for the driving characteristics, the acceleration is strong when in the highest part of the torque band (generally 1500-3500 rpm). The redline is at 4200 rpm. The engine produces 40 net HP and has 75 lbs-ft of torque. The gear ratios are close and this is a good thing, because with the narrow operating range there is lots of shifting to be done at lower speeds. By the way, paddle shifters mounted on the steering wheel are optional, though the test car did not have them (D'oh!). I think this would be a useful option. The car has to make four gear changes to reach 100 km/h, so against the stopwatch the time is not at all impressive: 19.8 seconds. However, this car cannot be powershifted, and it's not like many cars today which have stupid second gear ratios so they can get to 60 MPH with only one gearchange, lowering the time to the bare minimum. In gear, I would say it goes very well indeed and has bags of torque for the car's 1600 lb kerb weight. I never felt unable to keep up with traffic and in fact was faster than much of it.
I took it up to an indicated 115 km/h (72 MPH) on a short section of freeway (Trans Canada Highway out of Victoria) and it was very stable, despite there being wind gusts. Once above about 95 km/h in 6th, the engine is in its peak torque range and it'll pull up hills easily in that gear. 5th is good for passing speeds and quick bursts of acceleration.
The steering is nice and light, non-assisted, though electric power steering is an option. Well, to me that owuld be overkill, unless fitting the car with the optional 175 F + 195 R tires. with the standard 145s (the 2003 test car I drove was on 135s front/175 rear) the steering is very light. Transitional response is good, and with ESP trickery up it's sleeve it'd be hard to get into too much trouble on the road.
In summary, it's a unique and cool little car! Everyone was gawking at it and I could see many people mouthing "what the hell is that?" when we were in traffic. Everyone who saw it had a smile on their faces. Especially kids and young women. It's nice to make people happy ;-)
I renewed my deposit with Three Point Motors for the smart following this test and I'm still number 27 on their list of more than 150 names. According to the salesman (generally a very reliable source) he says the demand for the car is hot and cold across the M-B dealer network. For example, there are 150 orders in Victoria, a city of about 300,000, 2 in Edmonton (a city of 800,000), two in Kelowna (~120,000), quite a few in North Vancouver byt almost none in Calgary (1 million). As for eastern Canada I can't be sure, but there should be a lot of interest in Ottawa, Toronto , Montréal and Québec. My dealer hopes to get an initial allocation of 80 units for the 2005 model year, which would put me into late 2004/early 2005 for delivery.
For those from the USA who might be interested in getting one, you can apparently order one if you have a mailing address/residence in Canada. If not, they won't sell it to you. The M-B USA dealer network will not be equipped to handle them so it would be an orphan situation. But the CDN M-B warranty is rather good and it'd be a shame to miss out on that.
Cheers
