Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNKNOWN OR OTHER | |||
| 01/01/2013 | 6100 | ||
| On january 1st 2013, i was driving home with my preowned 2009 smart car brabus, i hit a average size pot hole but didn't really think about it much because i'm used to hitting these potholes. but as i drove on for another minute, the car started shaking violently to the point where i have to stop on the middle of the highway. and slowly pull over. come to find out that my tires were popped, the rims are bent. after doing some research on the wheels, i found that there is not enough cushion to withstand impacts such as a decent size pothole or bump. i also went on the smart car of america forums, other smart car brabus owners also is going through what i'm going through. it is really weird for me especially i've driven the car for only 130 miles. the size of the tire(215/35r17) clearly shows that there is not enough cushion for any type of decent size impact. | |||
| 07/12/2012 | 7330 | ||
| My smart is not going into reverse gear. this becomes very dangerous when trying to get out of traffic while exiting a driveway or parallel parking on a busy street. other drivers become impatient especially when there are cars in both directions blocked because of the smart unable to reverse. smart provided a software update for this known problem but it still persists. i have two friends with smart cars and they both have this problem. i've also google searched smart car reverse and what pops up is gear, problem and gear problem. there seems to be many smart owners with this problem. | |||
| 06/07/2012 | 10600 | ||
| From reviewing the smartusa website and other forums online i have seen exactly what issue i am seeing. it seems that there was a bad batch of ac blower motors. seems at one time they were on backorder as they were replacing under the warranty but my year was only 2/24k and now i am over 4 months of my warranty and was hoping that there would be a way for possible recall for the blower motors as mb and smart were aware of the issue and i am now looking a 400 dollar repair with only 10k miles. any assistance would be appreciated. many online have been talking about this issue. mine is intermidently working coming on going off half speed etc. | |||
| 04/01/2009 | 2000 | ||
| On or about 2 months or approximately 2000 miles i was driving my car and had stopped at my mothers driveway put the car on park and left the engine running for less than a minute while i handed something to my mother who approached the vehicle. when i tried putting the vehicle back on drivevto take off the engine was nonresponsive and read neutral. at which point i went back to park and tried again to put it in drive to no avail. i turned off the car and started it again and nothing. about the 5th attempt of off and on it finally went into drive gear. this has continued to happen eversince without any notice just randomly, even while i have been at intersections which has placed me and my passanger in great danger. i have taken the vehicle in numerous occasions to the dealer and the have no answers for me. | |||
| 09/11/2011 | |||
| I am having a problem with my 2009 smart fortwo passion's transmission. we picked up our car on saturday for the following problem: i was driving along & all of a sudden, the car seems to think it's in n. even changing the gears prompts an n in the gear position. once i turned the car off, it wouldn't start again & the dreaded three bars appeared. we tried the teach-in fix & it worked temporarily before acting up again. we had our car towed to the dealer for service and picked it up on saturday after the service department supposedly fixed it. the service department did a diagnostic check and a code appeared. they then reset whatever need to be reset for $112.98. we were also offered a software upgrade for $75 on the basis the service manager did not know what the upgrade does, but he did know it wouldn't fix the problem. obviously, we turned down the upgrade. i have contacted mercedes to absorb the cost of fixing this defect. our warranty expired only 6 weeks ago. since there is a method to limp to a safe place in the user manual, it seems they anticipated this problem to begin with. from reading blogs about this, i was not surprised when the same problem started again on sunday. now we are having it towed in for service again. i urge mercedes-benz to activate a recall on this model! sooner or later this defect is going to kick in on the freeway and someone will be rear-ended or even killed. this is not simply a nuisance malfunction! | |||
| 09/06/2011 | 18200 | ||
| Six weeks out of warranty - i was driving along & all of a sudden, the car seems to think it's in neutral, won't let me change gears - was only able to coast to a safe area off the highway. any gear i shifted to kept coming across the dash as the neutral position. once i turned the car off, it wouldn't start again & the dreaded three bars appeared. we tried the teach-in fix recommended in the user manual & it worked temporarily before acting up again. from the internet blogs i've read, this was a problem in the 2008 model - an upgrade was provided for a fix. my car is a 2009 and i feel smart usa should recall the 2009 model due to this obvious defect. it's absolutely ridiculous i would have to pay for something like this when the car is only six weeks past warranty! our dealer keeps transferring us to mercedes-benz financial since they're the one who approve the warranty issue. no one from mercedes is answering or returning our calls. | |||