Motor cars are crap.
 

As Mrs Monty usually does big miles with work. ( not motorway. Local stuff) she has a new car every 3 or so years.
The last debacle was the Fiat 500. Back 8 times under warranty. Stoneacre of peteboghorror are an absolute shower of ****. Would never own another. So this time Mrs Monty decided on a Smart forfour ( brabus turbo. Says so on the gear stick) 3 months old, 5 k on the clock and it ****s itself. Recovered to mercedes in Peterborough last Friday, today they called to say it needs a new turbo and engine mounts and some thing else. No courtesy car available. Turbo on back order could be 4 weeks..

As road tests go.......

Seriously, 5 k and it's stuffed it's turbo !!!!
Can she regect the car and get her money back ? At that rate it's going to need a turbo every year.

What's her milage allowance, will it cover a 300tdi ?

Paul.

2005 Volvo v70 D5 all problems solved run it til the moon and back. Same for some other Volvo models of older eras also.

Bottom line, stuff ain’t as good as it used to Be whether that be cars or a biro down the post office. Shame they were really good pens I always used to grab a few. Probs why they have crap ones now. Oh well....

A relative had a new smart. Broke down several times stranding her on the motorway. She got rid of it, it was that unreliable!

James:thumbs_up:

Get an original ForFour, they’re superb things. I really miss mine.

Small cheap cars are cheap for a reason, they are built to a budget. We used Fiesta's as patrol cars in my old company - no end of breakdowns with them. One had to have a new engine at 100k miles.

Are Smart still French built?

Main assembly plants now are in eastern France and Slovenia. Lots of parts shared between Smart ForFour and Renault Twingo.

With small cars, Japanese ones (at least the ones they export to us) are a little boring but often very reliable - they have had a lot of practice at making them, after all. My mother had a Yaris that did 120,000 miles without any major parts needing replacement, and it would have done a lot more if it hadn't been rear ended and written off. She has a Skoda Citigo now and I'm fairly impressed with that too - it really feels like a 'proper' car.

owned four smart cars and myriad fiats, covered ten's of thousands of trouble free miles in all of them. Sorry to hear about your woes man.