Love em - I've got a Brabus ForTwo - it's great fun

Sits on our drive between a Range Rover and a jacked up Jeep Wrangler

 

Allan - Just had another check of my oil and it looks like I'm using about 0.5L every 500miles.. which isn't anywhere near as bad as I suspected it of being, so I'm pretty happy.

I'm just looking forward to the summer returning and being able to get the roof off!

 

Alistair, that Jeep is a weapon

Prasius, would say mine was about the same. Fudge put 10w40 in which should help.

 

I drove a Smart ForTwo a few years back and a have guilty hankering for one, we have a 1967 Fiat 500 and that does the small, daft, nippy thing but it doesnt do safe, reliable or unlikely to imolate you thing.

 

Jeep needs more lights.

 

I'd love a 'real' Fiat 500 - it's one of my slightly more left-field dream lottery win garage cars..

On checking the trip meter it was actually 500ml of oil in 564 miles. I've got an odd feeling that the longer, faster trips I'm subjecting it to is actually improving things.

 

Have a look at youtube; plenty of Smart vids making mince meat out of other supermini's as well as much bigger vehicles.

Only issue they have is they are so rigid and deform so little in impact they rely heavily on the other car's crumple zone to cushion the impact and reduce the decelaration g-forces. Fine if you hit another car, not so good if you hit a concrete wall or a tree..the g-force alone can kill you.

YouTube - smart car crash

 

Bugger.

Driving back to mine from visiting the folks last night - small rural road I've driven hundreds, if not thousands of times before - small dip in road between linked corners. Turns out the dip was enough to trap the cold air and turn the surface into sheet black ice. I was doing around 40mph guesstimated after the event, back end stepped out, I managed to hold her (ish! ) for about 20 feet before she decided that going in the direction her lights were pointing was no longer in her interest, swapped ends and ended up hitting quite a high verge; almost rolling in the process.

I was wedged on the verge. Got out, nearly fell on my a**e on the black ice that was still covering the whole road.

Still, looking at the damage I'm feeling fortunate I wasn't in any thing else that cost what my Smart did, as I think it would have been a write off. No mechanical damage (I drove her the 90 miles back to mine to make sure... ) - however the following is trashed:

Front centre section
Passenger side front wing
Grill
Passenger side foglight

Looking last night - it appears the drivers side wing and the lower spoiler bit are okay. I'm going to have a proper look in daylight today, and the passenger side roof rail has a small dent in it.

oh, and the lower rear roof section has a tear in it. (after what was a fairly substantial impact, the really expensive damage done by a poxy £$%£ing STICK!!)

I'm fine - other than being a bit narked at myself for a stupid little accident on a road I've driven so often; but it's just one of those things.

The very nice man who happened to live in house near the corner came to see if I was alright and helped pull me off the verge in his Land Rover. I'm going to pop a bottle of wine off to him when I'm over there next.

I'm just waiting to see what else is going to go wrong this next few weeks now, I've had two...

 

That's bad luck, had a similar incident (no damage fortunately), it just seemed as though the traction control was a bit lazy.

Nice touch with the wine.

 

Well I figure he could have sat on his backside with it genuinely not actually being his problem. And I could do with some good karma..

A little token of appreciation doesn't hurt when someone goes out of their way to help someone they don't even know so I think it's only proper.

 

Sorry to hear about your accident.

How did it look in the daylight?

 

Pretty much as I expected really. I feel even more confident about being in a bigger accident in her though..

Just gutted about the cabrio roof though, because that's going to cost me £££

 

quality !

 

Might be worth giving this guy a call ?

 

Thanks very much for that - I hadn't seen that on my Ebay trawl.

I've already been approached by one person who said they'll buy it as is "if the price is right". So I'll wait to see how much the parts will rush me, and do the sums then.

Because of stuff with work, MOT dates and all the rest of it, I've bit the bullet and already bought myself a replacement (kinda) - picking it up next Saturday as I was being quite picky with lots of little jobs that need doing on it.

It's still a Smart though

 

The replacement smart

 

Very nice!

Every cloud (even crashing) can have a silver lining.

 

Nice colour combo, never driven one of these, how does it compare to the FourTwo ?

 

Considering they share much of the same mechanicals the difference is pretty big!

I've got the larger standard 205/45/16 wheels - which on a car weighing 800kgs means it's got massive amounts of grip which I feel successfully hides any other little handling flaws it might have. I couldn't get it to understeer with my best efforts, although I do think the powered steering rack is a compromise - it feels a bit twitchy with smaller inputs, and a bit slow at the limits of the rack. Slightly odd sounding the way I've described it, but I think anyone who's ever driven one would know what I mean! It does have a tendency to tramline a little at motorway speeds - down to the light weight and wide tyres I think. A very rough comparison, but I feel apex speeds in the Roadster are pretty similar to the Impreza - which I think is fairly impressive for a little car with a fraction of the power. Obviously having three times the power in the Impreza means you can cover the distance between corners that much quicker!

80bhp as standard, it feels quicker than the book 10.9 seconds to 60 suggests, but I think thats largely to do with your **** being about 5 inches from the road! Could it do with more power? A little perhaps - I think with about 130bhp (achievable on a Brabus model) it would feel genuinely fast.

I was asked by a mate last week if I preferred driving the Roadster to the Impreza, and it was a pretty tough question to answer! It certainly highlights the fact that power really isn't everything. Flappy paddles add a little to the fun, the gearbox is much better than that fitted to the 600cc cars, but the fully auto is still a "bit" *ahem* clumpy and indecisive in action.

It's a pain in the backside to get in and out of (not as bad as a mates Exige though!), practicality is dubious at best - but better than the notchback roadster.

As for fuel economy I did mid-Norfolk to Lincoln to Manchester via the scenic route (Buxton / Cat and Fiddle) and used about two thirds of a tank - and I wasn't really holding back either (as much as you can hold back with 80bhp!!)

It does leak, but then all real Roadsters leak. A garage or good quality fitted car cover is a must!

Do I think it's perfect? Not even remotely close! But it is reasonably uncommon on the roads, it does have a lot of character, it is great fun to drive, and costs next to nothing to run.

So yes, I'm a fan.

There is a Smart meet at the Ace Cafe from 11am til 4pm on the 10th April (Saturday coming).

 

Handling sounds way better than the ForTwo then, as I wouldn't even attempt to compare mine to the Scoob.

Character, fun and costs.........now that's a different matter

 

It just took me 2/8ths of a tank to cover 90 miles at between 60 and.. err.. 70.. ish.. mph.

Re the handling - there really isn't much body roll, the worst thing is that the OE springs aren't very progressive which means it can feel a little out of shape in bumpy sections. That's soon to be fixed with a set of springs and matched uprated Bilstein dampers (bargain at £214 from Camskill!)

I would say that a standard Roadster handles better than a standard (i.e. no uprated ARB's or drop links) newage STI, and that you could put the roadster into a corner faster than a standard STI. That or go in at the same speed and watch the Roady go past on the inside as you wash out wide in the Scoob.

 

Had my 4/2 Pure since leaving the scooby word over 6yrs ago now

cars a 2002 car, 52plate.. just over 38k miles now.

also bought a Roadster in 2005 as well, just to get the grin factor back
highly modded... not been out in it since the start of Nov last year. now done just over 13k miles!!!!





been pleased with both cars, cheap running costs and fun.