Used 2008 smart fortwo Hatchback Consumer Reviews
Used fortwo for sale
2008 Piece of Junk
dispshannon, 02/11/2011
2008 smart fortwo passion 2dr Hatchback (1.0L 3cyl 5AM)
12 of 13 people found this review helpful
I purchased this vehicle new and within 1 year was having trouble with the transmission ...Wont go into reverse. Dealership says nothing wrong. 1 year later..NO WARRANTY and now it wont go into reverse or forward. How do you drive a car that wont do forward or reverse..YOU DONT...
I hate this car so much...
foxmajik, 04/11/2011
2008 smart fortwo passion 2dr Hatchback (1.0L 3cyl 5AM)
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
I've had to take this car in for work more than my used '92 Mazda Protege. For various reasons, from plastic pieces falling off the interior to the air dam in the front snapping off and dragging on the freeway. The gas mileage is atrocious for a car this small (around 25 mpg). The transmission is a confused and nervous little curmudgeon that can't decide what gear it wants to be in when you're under 15 mph and keeps jumping back and forth between 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Every time the gear shifts the car lurches back and lunges forward like I've slammed on the brakes. And this is normal for smart cars, every one I've been in does it, even after having the transmission firmware upgraded.
2008 smart fortwo for sale near you
Showing 3 of 28 listings
- passion cabrio ConvertibleMSRP: $5,500202 mi away
- passion 2dr HatchbackMSRP: $4,998291 mi away
- passion cabrio ConvertibleMSRP: $6,685364 mi away
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It's an electronic nightmare Mercedes fault.
W4CSC, 12/18/2019
2008 smart fortwo passion 2dr Hatchback (1.0L 3cyl 5AM)
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
Bought it 2009 from used car dealer. Old lady in a home owned it first. When it runs right it is a great car, even with its queer transmission shifting. Too bad the idiots that built it don't know how to SOLDER! There's a Youtube video on how to fix its horrible SAM computer for free. It's not rocket science, no matter what the liars at the dealer tells you trying to get another thousand dollars out of you. Here's my 10 years with my 2008 Smart Fortwo Passion Coupe. Three times it just died in the middle of traffic. The fuse to the tiny fuel pump in the 10 gallon plastic fuel tank blew. The Smart computers aren't smart. They don't know there's no fuel pressure and try to start it anyway. Three tow truck rides, total. Trip one, nothing found, replace fuse, car ran nearly a week before fuse blew again. Trip 2, "You need a new fuel pump." Pump replaced, fuse replaced. It ran a day, blew fuse again. LUCKILY, I demanded my old pump and all parts. Ran pump with little valve at 42PSI for 4 hours at 14VDC. Pump faultless. Trip 3, demanded my $1,086.53 returned for parts and misdiagnoses. Dealer offered to return only $550 of my money plus all new parts Service manager found pump power wire screwed to ground under gas tank mounting from factory. Soldered wire and taped up bare spot. Tape later came off and blew fuse again. Mercedes geniuses put ABS computer UNDER cabin outside where driving through any water flooded it. Battery voltage caused electrolysis and soon rotted pins off leaky plug. Thousand dollar computer replacement refused. Bought one from a junker in salvage yard. Like Apple computers, car will not run with replacement parts unless you let them fix it for thousands. Hacker in AZ reprogrammed junk comuputer over internet at my 3rd party Mercedes shop. DON'T DRIVE IT THROUGH ANY KIND OF WATER! ABS is expensive! 4 times the cracked and crazed plastic sunroof was replaced before MBUSA bought out Smart America from the importer. I gave up trying to have a sunroof you could look through and see the sky. Top 4 is as bad as top 1 was. Top is glued on over the hole. There is no security in this car. Even the black roof of the cheap one is glued on. WARNING - NEVER ALLOW THE CAST PREMIUM WHEEL TO HIT THE CURB! My guest boy hit the curb and broke BOTH right hand wheels off the car where the rim meets the spokes. SMART OWNERS - Replace your cast wheels with the steel wheels from the Pure. I paid $200 for a set of steel Smart wheels from a California recycler. The car crashes to the ground when, not if, the cast wheels break off it. There is a bad capacitor in the radio. Unfortunately, the company that also makes all Ford radios says any schematic to fix it is proprietary and you can't have it So, the AUX and thousand six hundred dollar CD player no longer work and the radio is distorted. The computer lost control of the idiotic shifting program, but I reset it by disconnecting the battery for a day and rebooting. Thiis also worked to reboot the ignition computer that failed running for miles in the boondocks on 2 cylinders. Shut off the key, wait 10 minutes, restart and all cylinders run again. For the last 8 months the heater fan failed to run, yet again, in hot and freezing weather. The first two times it died, I, first, re-aligned the brushes in the crap Behr fan motor but the commutator soon chewed the brushes up, yet again. So, I bought a set of better brushes from an Ebay seller and filed the sharp edges off the commutator segments to save them. Hella-Behr knows better after all these years but chooses to build bad motors to make dealers profit. The new brushes ran for years before the wiring and poor solder joints on all boards in the car disconnected, somewhere. Again, owners are never allowed to possess a REAL SCHEMATIC of the little beast so one can trace the poorly coded wires through the maze of wiring. Even dealers have nothing but an interconnect diagram between"mystery modules". Keep swapping thousand dollar modules until something works. As you can see this owner is not a fauning fan of the Smart mistake. It must not be compared to any of my other Mercedes cars. It was 3 times the cost of my 1983 300TD diesel station wagon that still run flawlesslly at 850,000 miles. Let me change the oil and we can leave for California in the morning......
- Safety
- Technology
- Performance
- Interior
- Comfort
- Reliability
- Value
You will forever regret this!
Robert_Kern, 07/27/2010
2008 smart fortwo passion 2dr Hatchback (1.0L 3cyl 5AM)
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
I have had my smart for just under 2 years now. At first it seemed perfect for New York. 150 Dollar Parking per month, fits in tight places, etc. Very quickly however did I find out what an unreliable, terrible little car this is. It has broken down multiple times due to computer errors, failing transmission, clutch, etc. It shakes everything lose on the car whenever you hit the slightest bump. Even a sewer lid produces a noisy thump and a jolt. The car shakes at highway speeds and now my roof is starting to crack. And where is smart? They don't want to have anything to do with the car, the service departments don't know very much about it, the customer service is horrific!
Smart Metro Car
Dan K, 07/25/2010
2008 smart fortwo pure 2dr Hatchback (1.0L 3cyl 5AM)
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
I live in Tucson, AZ and the only hwy driving I've done is to take it 90 miles to Chandler for servicing once a year. Not fun to drive in strong cross winds where everyone wants to drive 85+ mph (limit is 75 mph). Helps to find a mid-sized truck or large van going 75 mph to follow behind. Got 57 mpg on one hwy, 50 mph on my most recent trip (with A/C). Car is perfect for driving around Tucson where hwy travel is limited. The high profile is not great for high wind at high speeds, but it makes getting in and out much easier on the knees. Well worth the trade off for me. Can override auto shifting when needed. Not good with "California stops" as it confuses the auto shift.