Chopper

Team, A sort of maintenance query. One of my wheels could do with a refurb, I could send all 4 off and have them powder coated or painted, but that's expensive and unnecessary. Does anyone know the paint code Smart used on the alloy 450 wheels? If I can get the paint I can get just the one sorted. Thanks.

74ish in real motoring is about right on an EQ. If you need more then a city car isn't the vehicle to he looking at.

Check tyre wear, check pressures...and check tyre age. At 6-7ish years a tyre is borked no matter how unworn it may be, the compounds that make the material pliable at the microscopic level will have broken down and the tyre won't behave as it should. That phenomenon is what killed Paul Walker.

If it counts, I've owned one of my bicycles since 1983, 37 years ago. The other 8 are much newer.

I'm currently 29 years with the same Yamaha. If I eat healthily and exercise I could still make 80 years with it!

Aye, my sister has the 451 CDI. In some ways its "better", but the ride isn't one of them (I still like it a lot though).

It not will creep, regardless of what the handbook says - there is no torque converter. Mine never did. If you don't believe me that's entirely you're business, but I guarantee you're about to spend a lot of money on a car that will behave no differently. Let me know when you've had your clutch changed.

It definitely will not creep. It's a manual box, but instead of cables or linkages attached to the bottom of a gear stick there's a system of robotised servo controls so it mimics the auto changes of a proper slush box. There's no torque converter full of fluid to allow it to creep the car forward with the drivers foot off the gas. Unless you drive like Lewis Hamilton on acid you'll get plenty of warning before the clutch goes. You'll start to get good old fashioned clutch slip and revs rising when pulling away, just as on a conventional manual car. I'd be reluctant to spend hundreds of pounds on a new clutch for a car thats probably not worth a grand anyway (at least here they're not) until the clutch is actually starting to misbehave, which at the moment it isn't. As an aside, they're nice cars. They're obviously close relatives of the Colt, but there are a lot of detail mechanical changes to the point where surprisingly few items are directly compatible between the two. Much better finished than the Colt and nicely appointed, but in typical Smart style they priced it way too high with no material justification, cynically hoping for vast profits from a market segment that turned out not to exist - people buy small cars because they're cheap to buy and run, and the moment they're not cheap to buy then they're really of little interest to that market. Smart were geared up to produced 600 a day, but were on average selling only 40 a day across the whole of Europe at one point. Unsurprisingly, they pulled the plug. Sadly, it's a lesson that Smart have never completely learned.

You got 2 inches of suspension travel. No matter what you do short of lift kits or major chassis work, that is the limiting factor.

You mention the tyre sizes...the 450 stability system is very prone to throwing sulks over tyre size. It's not unknown for owners to fit new tyres to one axle but not the other and for that tiny differential to be sufficient to cause problems. Fairly well known issue over here where the 450 is (or was) a very common car. With such light weight and a tiny wheelbase the system is calibrated on a razor's edge to give it half a chance of keeping the car in line, and it really is very good (the Smart system was transplanted into the A class as part of the redesign to cure the inconvenient falling over problem) but the upshot is that it is very sensitive to the boots.

I felt a bit Ill looking at that. What a horrible thing to do to a leakster.

Mercedes dealers by and large couldn't care less about Smart customers. The only reason they're Smart dealers at all is because Daimler tell them they can't have the Mercedes franchise if they don't have the Smart franchise as well, so there's little genuine interest in their Smart customers, who don't bring in the same kind of profit that MB customers do.

Oh. I know my eyes aren't the best as I age, but even I can see a police car without its gumball machine lit. So it seem could everyone else in the video, though the nearest driver was definitely HUA.

The cop had no headlights either? Does no one use their lights over there?

Blimey, I wonder why he didn't stop for the Feds?

I recall in the Army in Germany...it took 29 inches of snow to finally defeat the Landies (we measured, we were impressed!). I've never got stuck in the snow in any car, 4wd, AWD, FWD or RWD, and never managed to go off the road for a little jolly either. Some cars and tyres are better suited than others, but none of it compensates for a fundamental lack of driving ability. The most important component is the loose nut behind the wheel.

Im trained to drive 4wd properly, so I'd be happy with either. Or both! BMWs are first in the ditch up this way. My brother charges 30 quid a time to tow them back onto the tarmac.

I've never seen speakers here on a 450. I don't know why, because it's much nicerm than mounting them lower down on the door and having them playing music into your hip. These 4 inch Pioneers fit nicely, and while they won't give audiophiles a boner they're a big improvement over the stock speakers and bins.

Aye, mine has the boxes too but they're still a long way from being able to manage Thin Lizzy at any real volume. These add a little depth, a little clarity at higher volumes, and noticeably better stereo imaging. I'd been meaning to fit them for over a year, and as the weather was dry and mild yesterday I finally did the deed. We do have areas with poor or non existent digital radio reception. It's pretty good down here in the middle of the island but @tolsen may suffer a bit in his area. FM is pretty good all over, bit I'm a slavering Planet Rock fanatic and that's only on digital. I have a sony CD player that was probably quite expensive in its day, but probably a bit archaic by modern standards. It can play MP3 CDs so I burn CDs in that manner with 11 or 12 albums per disc. A poor mans multichanger. Mine did have the multichqnger from new but it was borked by the time I'd bought the car so that went in the bin.

Aye, the later 700 petrols li e mine were 33 litre.

Mine slips down very unobtrusively behind the passenger seat.

Except in this case they're quite correct. Not using the handbrake means when you move your foot from the brake to the loud pedal you are momentarily not at all in control of either the propulsion or braking, which is an offence, and rightly so - you can neither accelerate away from danger, or brake to prevent yourself being punted towards it. Indeed, it's been an offence in the UK long before the EEC came into being, never mind the EU, so it has nothing to do with Brexit or politics and its disingenuous to suggest it is so. In the driving test youd fail instantly for not stopping correctly at junctions, roundabouts, traffic lights etc, but because people are lazy they quickly forget that which they were taught. Like in the army, you do your weapons drills the same way every time in the knowledge that to do so minimises the chances of catastrophe. So it is with driving, except most very lowly qualified, unskilled drivers either think they know better, or are too lazy to even care, and that's how cock ups happen. I'll agree to differ with you on this one. I'm a highly qualified and very experienced professional, and I'll just carry on doing it the way the professionals do.

Aside from the mechanical arguments, under UK law you're considered "not in proper control" if you hold a car in gear and don't app,y the handbrake. Its rare that people get knocked off for it, but they do occasionally. I've done a few in my 29 years of policing.

I drive it in semi most of the time, auto in heavy traffic once the engine is warm. The moment I stop it goes into N and the handbrake gets applied . Im a bit sad and anal as a police advanced driver (pursuit and response) so stuff like selecting neutral, applying handbrake and taking hands and feet off the controls until im ready to move again is now deeply ingrained.

Fair point, unless you've seen it running it can be tricky to assess its condition. The flip side of that is that a properly done rebuild is liable to be a fair bit more expensive than selling up and spending a bit extra on one that isn't broken.