Smart ForTwo Cdi

[AJI]

This weekend I have in my posession a 2010 smart fortwo cdi. I've borrowed it from smart UK's press fleet as part of a smart-themed weekend, where I visited smartfest yesterday to which over 1400 examples of the model showed up, and I'll be writing a few articles on that, the cdi and other stuff for the two websites I write for, allcarselectric.com and greencarreports.com.

Anyway, since this is the most economical car on sale in the UK, it'd be daft of me not to measure what I've been getting. Smart quote the cdi's economy as 85mpg in UK gallons, which works out as 70mpg in US gallons. Pretty good, I think you'll agree.

Anyway, the car has a theoretical tank range of over 600 miles, and my round-trip to smartfest is, co-incidentally, just over 600 miles. Would I make it on one tank?...

...err, no. Not by a bit. However, given that the fuel gauge is overly pessimistic, I found I still had 6 liters left when I filled up out of the 33 liter tank.

I'd done 433 miles on just under 6 UK gallons, around 7 US gallons. When I did the sums my consumption was about 72mpg UK, or 59.9mpg US. I reckon this is pretty good, considering that although most of my journey was done around 65-70mph but a good 30 minutes of it was crawling along in traffic, another 30 minutes involved getting lost in a town near the show, and we did use the aircon for maybe an hour or so of the 7 hours between fills, and a few minutes of it were done at... rather more than 70mph. Let's just say that smart's 85mph limiter is about 10mph pessimistic...

Anyway, mpg aside - if any of you would like to know anything specific about the fortwo cdi, feel free to ask. Anything about how it drives, what the engine is like... just try me and I'll have a go at answering!

[EdKiefer]

here in US the gas version is rated at 40mpg highway .
That is with 1.0-liter dual-cam 3-cylinder AFAIK.

[bestclimb]

hows the trunk space?

[AJI]

Originally Posted by EdKiefer

here in US the gas version is rated at 40mpg highway .
That is with 1.0-liter dual-cam 3-cylinder AFAIK.

Correct. Though from what I've heard, people struggle to achieve even that. For some reason, the current gas fortwo is curiously inefficient compared to the old ones - maybe it's something to do with using the Mitsubishi engine rather than the old, smaller turbocharged ones.

The diesel on the other hand seems very easy to get good mileage out of.

Originally Posted by bestclimb

hows the trunk space?

On the car I have, not too bad but certainly not brilliant. That's mostly because I've got the convertible, where more space is taken up by roof mechanisms etc. It'll fit a typical travel bag easily, perhaps even two at a push with a little space to spare. Here's a decent pic I found, since I've not taken any of the trunk myself:

[Clev]

Originally Posted by AJI

Anyway, mpg aside - if any of you would like to know anything specific about the fortwo cdi, feel free to ask. Anything about how it drives, what the engine is like... just try me and I'll have a go at answering!

Yeah, can you pull the engine and sneak it into the US for me? ;-)

[Christopher Jordan]

Originally Posted by AJI

On the car I have, not too bad but certainly not brilliant. That's mostly because I've got the convertible, where more space is taken up by roof mechanisms etc. It'll fit a typical travel bag easily, perhaps even two at a push with a little space to spare. Here's a decent pic I found, since I've not taken any of the trunk myself:
]

My brother has the model in the photograph. I use a wheelchair so removing both back wheels from the chair will work (although it rattles on the window)!

[EdKiefer]

Originally Posted by AJI

Correct. Though from what I've heard, people struggle to achieve even that. For some reason, the current gas fortwo is curiously inefficient compared to the old ones - maybe it's something to do with using the Mitsubishi engine rather than the old, smaller turbocharged ones.

The diesel on the other hand seems very easy to get good mileage out of.



On the car I have, not too bad but certainly not brilliant. That's mostly because I've got the convertible, where more space is taken up by roof mechanisms etc. It'll fit a typical travel bag easily, perhaps even two at a push with a little space to spare. Here's a decent pic I found, since I've not taken any of the trunk myself:

This weekend Motorweek did a TV review on a few eco cars, VW jeta TDI, Audi 03 TDI , Honda insight , Toyota Prius ,
Ford Fusion and Smart

MotorWeek: Road Test

Don't know if you can view the vid , I couldn't find how offhand .
Overall they liked the smart but though it compromised a bit to much for mpg it gives (gas version ) .

[AJI]

Yeah, the gas version comes in for a lot of criticism over economy but I think the diesel is completely different and could quite easily achieve the figures that Smart claim for it given a more steady drive than mine was.

Performance wasn't great, but wasn't awful either - the diesel is actually the slowest production car on sale in the UK at the moment, 17 seconds to 60mph and 85mph top speed.

However, at city speeds it moves off the line quite nicely, and even on the motorway at 65-70mph it's sitting at a nice 2,500rpm with some power and torque to spare. And that 85mph limiter can't have too much willpower as I managed another 10mph (indicated) on top of that at one point which it then happily carried up a hill, so I reckon if you wanted the performance occasionally it'd have just enough to get by.

My main criticism was of the instrumentation - there's no instant MPG reading, which seems like a bit of an oversight. I'm sure people here would fit a scangauge or whatever but an instant MPG meter is always nice, especially on such an economy-biased car.

[Christopher Jordan]

A version of a "photoshopped" Smart really was ideal for me; but I doubt it will become a reality. A Smart was seen with a 9 foot long pickup bed in that photo. My Pod in the avatar is almost 9 feet long. If that 9 foot pickup or van carried the Smart nameplate that would be a match made in heaven for me!

Electric Smarts do exist, but I know nothing about those.

My favourite Smart video was one which had 2 Smart cars with Hayabuso motorcycle engines in them. I was not expecting what I saw. 2 plain old Smarts; "eeeewarrr....!" clouds of flying dirt: and my jaw dropped!

[EdKiefer]

Originally Posted by AJI

Yeah, the gas version comes in for a lot of criticism over economy but I think the diesel is completely different and could quite easily achieve the figures that Smart claim for it given a more steady drive than mine was.

Performance wasn't great, but wasn't awful either - the diesel is actually the slowest production car on sale in the UK at the moment, 17 seconds to 60mph and 85mph top speed.

However, at city speeds it moves off the line quite nicely, and even on the motorway at 65-70mph it's sitting at a nice 2,500rpm with some power and torque to spare. And that 85mph limiter can't have too much willpower as I managed another 10mph (indicated) on top of that at one point which it then happily carried up a hill, so I reckon if you wanted the performance occasionally it'd have just enough to get by.

My main criticism was of the instrumentation - there's no instant MPG reading, which seems like a bit of an oversight. I'm sure people here would fit a scangauge or whatever but an instant MPG meter is always nice, especially on such an economy-biased car.

Right, I think the TDI are good, only thing in US we need a bit more diesel pumps compared to gas .
When I was in germany in 2005 I rented a VW station wagon (I forget its name ) was I think 2.xL TDI and 6MT .
I was really impressed with it, if you didn't know it was diesel you never know from driving it .

It had real good torque to around 4k, but with 6MT that didn't really matter if top end wasn't so strong, just short-shift it .
If my memory right I got about 35 mpg on it driving all around Germany. Handling was nice and tight too .