SMART ROADSTER COUPÉ
RUNBY Charlie Calderwood OWNED SINCE Sept 2022 PREVIOUS REPORT June ’23
The Smart hasnʼt featured here for a while, but itʼs not for want of things happening with the car. Electrical gremlins, mostly: every time I thought it was all fixed, something else would pop up.
It started with the electrics dying when starting. The fix was to disconnect then reconnect the battery, after which it would be fine for a couple of months. Roadsters are known for this kind of thing, so I thought it best not to disturb what was otherwise a functioning electrical system, even if it did leave me sweating
whenever I needed to turn off the car at my local level crossing.
It had its moments, though: once at a petrol station with a queue of cars behind, another on the cliffs above Omaha Beach in Normandy. It was otherwise flawless on the trip: sipping fuel, fitting two peopleʼs luggage ( just!) and with the air-con blowing cold – even if doing so saps about a third of the engineʼs power.
Then the dipped beam failed. I was able to swap the wiring from full beam to get me home, but my local mechanic decided it was beyond him and suggested I find a specialist. I tracked one down, who found that the headlight connector on the SAM (Smart lingo for the central computer/ fusebox) was damaged, but, in fixing this, the electric power steering stopped working. The specialist suggested sending the SAM off for reconditioning. Then the lights stopped working again, this time dipped and full beam.
I wasnʼt exactly satisfied with that experience, so I took the car to Smart Car Repairs in Brentford. It took an hour of slow, methodical diagnostic work, but the solution turned out to be simple: a couple of fuses that appeared to be fine, but were actually dodgy. That got the steering working again, as well as one set of headlights. The fullbeam lights, meanwhile, turned out to have blown bulbs – despite being just a month or so old.
Crucially, the SAM was fine. Smart Car Repairsʼ expertise saved me hundreds on an unnecessary replacement circuit board, and the trip ended up being rather cheap. I did fear the issues would return – why did the fuses blow in the first place? – but months on I havenʼt had a problem.
That wasnʼt quite the end of it, though: I also replaced the knock sensor when it triggered an enginemanagement light. The sensor is high up on the side of the engine facing the body tub, so even that job is impossible without a lift. My local mechanic stepped up.
Thatʼs my main disappointment with the Roadster: the packaging is so tight and the electronics so sophisticated that I hit brick walls whenever I try to work on it, and I miss being able to do things myself. So, after a year and a half with the Smart, Iʼve decided to move it on, and itʼs now for sale (charlie.calderwood@haymarket.com if youʼre interested).
Whatʼs next? A Toyota MR2 Mk2 tops the list, but Iʼm always looking for rarer alternatives. As ever, itʼs a case of what comes up in the right condition at the right price.