Smart Car Choices

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

sheddy

Legendary Member
Location
Suffolk
Beautiful Wife having late life crisis and has decided on the purchase of a 2 door Smart car.

We mainly bimble about and use dual cabbageways & motorways only once a month.

What does the team think - auto or manual, 70 or 90 hp ?

Budget £10k.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
90 without a doubt. You'll spend every minute behind the wheel regretting it if you go for the 70. It's the difference between easily keeping up with traffic or spending your days being intimidated by lorries.

Try both transmissions. The clutch on the manual is a bit sharp, and while you'll get used to it the auto is nicer, although that itself requires a bit of practice to get used to it (treat the accelerator almost like a manual and lift off the pedal a bit just as you sense the car is changing, gives a much smooth change on the auto.)

Pre April 2017 gives free or cheap tax as well, post is the blanket £165 wallet emptier.
 
OP
OP
S

sheddy

Legendary Member
Location
Suffolk
How can one identify which power engine just by eyeballing a car ?

(suspect a dealer will stitch me up…)
 
Last edited:

Drago

Legendary Member
Not necessarily, a lot of the specs went across both engines although thenturbos were usually higher spec. The turbo is a 0.9 whereas the NA is a 1.0, which makes it easier to spot in the ads.
 

CXRAndy

Guru
Location
Lincs
Beautiful Wife having late life crisis and has decided on the purchase of a 2 door Smart car.

We mainly bimble about and use dual cabbageways & motorways only once a month.

What does the team think - auto or manual, 70 or 90 hp ?

Budget £10k.

We drove a smart car quite a few years ago. The gearshifts were horrendous. This was an automatic model. I understand the EV version isn't bad albeit a city car
 
Top Bottom