gotwavs

I was happy with the sound in my smart but that didn't stop me from upgrading. I could tell that the alpines were better qualiy just by picking up the stock speakers after doing the same with the alpine: better materials, bigger magnets and not that it matters really, but better looking too. I put one in and then tried the sound so I could hear them side by side. At low volume the sound was richer from the alpine than the stock. At high volume the stock distorted and the alpine still sounded clean. That made me feel good knowing that I had made a good decision. Installation was surprisingly easy. I had never taken any of the panels off before. But I just followed Evilution's door panel removal tutorial. (Seen Here) Thanks, Kane. Then I checked out his door speaker tutorial. (Seen Here) Thanks again, Kane. The tricky part for me was getting that first panel back on. It came off so easy I figured it'd go on just as easy. I figured it out eventually and the second went on fairly easy. I paid $63 shipped at etronics.com. Clicky They're $99 buck if you buy them at the local big box stores. It was definitely worth the price, time and effort. Like I said, I was happy with the sound but now... I'm happy-ER

We're a little spoiled here. When I went to the dealership here for the first time I was talking to one of the Smart reps about the buildings. It used to be an Isuzu dealership. I noticed that the service bays looked recycled from the old buildings. He said that even the show building was reused. The put a new face on it and cleaned up the inside. I was very surprised. The building looked brand new.My wait was 1 year and about 2 months.I didn't even notice that thing on the windshield. So, it's different on the Canadian 451s?I think I understand what you mean about disabling the creep feature. You just pull the handbrake up until it clicks once and it electronically disables it? I'll have to try that.I did notice one wierd thing when driving it. I was driving up a slight hill and decided to back down in neutral to turn around. I think it beeped or something and when I put it into D it wouldn't engage until I put it in P, shut the car off and restarted the car. I think I was in neutral anyway. I might have been in reverse. I'll have to try that again.

Yeah, that cable should be plenty long enough. Mine even has a little extra that I leave in the glove box.I'm glad to help.

I edited my posts above and added some pics for clarity.

That's exactly why I did the mod. The tuneflex blocked the cup holders. I was always having to, like you said, decide whether I wanted to take the tuneflex out or risk a spill.I'm glad I could help. I also love this site for all the helpful people and information.I used the cable that came with the tuneflex. I just plugged it into the aux input and routed that behind the radio/AC faceplate and into the cubby. (no drilling required for this) I thought about either moving the Aux jack or splitting it and adding another one but I don't really think I need it.I have plenty of room for my cell phone and change and wallet under the tuneflex so that should work for you.

Here is a link to Evilution's 451 Stereo Removal Tutorial I didn't unplug the radio. I just pulled it out and let it hang by the wires. I didn't remove the aux input. I just added a new 12V outlet. I got this at Radio Shack. [This line was edited for clarity] I hooked a spade connector (seen here) to the red wire so I could plug it into a free switched connection on the fuse block under the dash on the driver side. There is a great pic of the switched outlet in the other forum (seen here). [also see pic below] I also sniped the ring terminal (seen here) off the black wire and crimped on a bigger one that would fit on the ground point. The located to the left and below the fuse block. It has a bunch of brown wires connected to it. There a picture on the other forum's tutorial (seen here). [also see pic below] Just take that nut off with a 10 mm socket or wrench and put the ring terminal on and put the nut back on. The tutorial (seen here) is very good. I couldn't have done it better. The only thing I did differently was install it in the right cubby instead of the left cubby. That's why I took out the radio. So that I could feel around back there to see where it was safe to drill. I used a 1" spade bit (seen here) to drill the hole. And then I used a rat tail file to open the hole up a bit. Then I sanded the edges with sandpaper on a piece of wood dowel to dress it up. If I had one I would have been better off with a 1 1/8" spade bit (seen here). You should be able to pick one up at any hardware store. With the 1 1/8" bit I might have been able to avoid the rat tail file step. In the other tutorial he used a large step bit. I would have used that but I couldn't get it to fit in the right cubby. They also cost $60-$80 so if you don't already have one it's not really worth it. And if you're not careful with a step bit you can accidentally make too big of a hole. You can take the plastic off but you can't put it back on. I also had to notch the hole a little bit on the right side with a knife because the outlet has a ridge to line it up an keep it from turning. I put in the outlet upside down so that the cover would hang down. Notch it on the left if you want the plug cover words to be right-side up. Route you're cables. Slide the outlet into place, snap it in. Hook the black wire with ring connector to the ground point. Plug the red wire with male spade connector to the fuse block (switched or unswitched your preference. I did switched so it would shut off with the car.) And you should be good to go. Another thing I did since I had the radio out was route a cable from the aux input in the glove box to the cubby hole. Since I already had the radio cover off I just ran the cable out of the glove box under the AC unit (above the radio) and into the cubby. [see pic below] I put the cover back on and it worked like a charm. I've edited this post to add four more pics for clarity:

Thank You, thank you. Glad you like it. It was fun to do and surprisingly easy.

I tried this mod from another forum but changed it up a bit. Instead of the left cubby I put mine in the right cubby. It's a little harder to drill it out because it's a tighter area to work in. If you have the right tools it's pretty easy though. I also took out the radio so that I could feel around behind the area I was going to drill out so that I didn't cut any wires and checked for room. While I had it out I routed my aux cable to the cubby from the glove box. I used the Radio Shack outlet here. It fits in there perfect. I needed it for my Griffin Tuneflex for my ipod. The default power outlet is in a bad place for the tuneflex because it blocks the cup holders and it has a tendancy to move around. The new outlet works much better for me. It's easier for me to see the ipod and access. Sorry, my pics are a little crappy cause I used my phone to take them.

Well, I got had my first fill up today and I'm pretty pleased. I got 38 MPG on the first tank. I was thinking that it would be worse being the first tank. I'm tracking my millage on spritmonitor.de as I've seen others on here do.

Oh, I'm on the fence again. 450 blue 50% / 451 blue 50%. Whoa, the euphoria just kicked in again. 450 blue 49% / 451 blue 51%.Yeah, thank goodness fore wireless. My favorite internet service provider is linksys or default. It's especially easy to find open wifi in tourist towns. Just look for the motels.I wasn't too freaked out about it except when my crappy lappy took a nappy. I wanted to throw that thing across the room. I was too busy doing vacation things to think about it. There's only a couple of places I had a cell signal in Yellowstone Park so even if I wanted to I couldn't have done anything then.

Yeah, that blue is starting to grow on me. I thought I liked the 450 blue better before I got mine but now... Maybe it's just the euphoria of getting a new car. I'd still like Black rims though.I went back to the dealer today and got a K&N filter put on and the all-weather floor mats. I've put 109 miles on it now which is more driving than I'm used to. On my way back to the dealership I was passed by another smart car. It was a white w/black 451 pure model.I also put some of that non-slip roll out stuff in the boot so that hopefully stuff won't slide around back there.I did have another bit of bad luck with technology. I bought a scan gauge before my vacation and tried it out in my parents cars. It worked great then. But now it doesn't work. If I push the cable in hard it will come on but if I let go it shuts off. I even went back and tried it on their cars again and it don't work now. Oh well, I guess I'll have to send it in for warranty repair.

Thanks for the congrats, guys. Everything went smooth as silk today. My account executive, Massimo Orsini was great guy. I really felt he had my best interests front and foremost. Another great guy at smart center portland is Glenn Gallamore, another account executive. He showed me around the dealership on opening day. He showed me the car prep area and and the maintenance bays. They really have a laid back attitude in there.Here's a pic I took of my car parked at home, where it belongs:

It finally happened, I got the call that my smart is finally here. It, of course, happened while I was in the middle of my vacation. I almost deleted the email in my inbox because I thought it was spam.I thought they were supposed to give you a call when the car was on the boat on it's way here. Oh, well. I'm not complaining as long as it's here. That saved me a month of anticipation.I got my insurance while in West Yellowstone. I called them up because I had a saved quote from online. Of course that quote was expired so I had to go through the process again. I almost get done with the quote and they had a power outage at that call center. So he patched me to another call center where they tried to retrieve the quote I almost finished. Of course, it had not been saved, so once more I went through the rigmarole. And finally, I was done I had insurance, or did I...I had to e-sign my paperwork. That's fine, right? I have my Phone with internet. I login to the site and go to the documents section, uh-oh, I need adobe acrobat reader. My phone doesn't have that. So okay, laptop time. I turn on the laptop. All the buttons only work only when booting up. This includes the keyboard, power button, and the button to turn on wifi. And for some reason when I click shutdown nothing happens. So I had to unplug the battery from the lappy to get it to restart. I reboot it and press the wifi button to get it to come on. Then I need to use the on-screen keyboard to type. And then, voila, right, I'm golden. Nope...I couldn't connect to the wifi at the campground where I was staying on the laptop for some reason. I could with the phone. It should work no problem. So, we drove into town and found a motel that said free wifi and I did it from the parking lot. All I had to do was power it up, press the wifi button franticly, connect to a motel's wifi clandestinly, fire up the on-screen keyboard, login to the site , e-sign my paperwork and get the heck out of there before the motel staff kicked us out of there. This time it really worked. I was relieved to say the least.I'm going to pay for it and pick it up today as long as everything goes as planned...

I just use google to convert stuff. I type in: convert 4.1 l/100km to mpg and it spits out: 4.1 l/100km = 57.3694106 miles per gallon Good link though.

Yeah, you do good work, Ohiosmart.