What Did You Do To Your Smart Today?

[yyzboyz 0]

I thought Francisco had his replaced in Missiaauga and it was reasonable?

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

My understanding is that Francesco has a Cabriotec glass window. It looks like that would be something like $518 CAD (Although that includes VAT...) plus shipping.

Alpha Auto Trim in Mississauga has replaced vinyl windows (and info was posted here) for something like $250 + tax. Reading about them though, it sounds likie they basically cut out all but a little rim of the vinyl, then glued new stuff onto that. Not necessarily a huge fan of that method.

No reason for me to go to Mississauga to get it replaced. Troy says he knows a place around here that has done it before, and there are lots of places that do Vinyl windows for boat covers around too, so they'd be able to do it.

[Francesco 71]

The member's name is D'Arcy and his forum handle is Uisge, he lives in Kanata. AFAIK he was forced to scrap his car last summer but I never found out if he retrieved the rear roof section before sending it to the boneyard.

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

Ugh, haven't even gotten to contacting him yet.

Tuesday night the airbag light popped up on the cabrio when I hit a bump. Sigh. Wednesday I hooked up the star machine and read the code - Drivers side airbag. I undid the battery, disconnected the airbag wire under the seat, used some contact cleaner and put it back together. Cleared the code, and it's stayed off. Job done.

Wednesday night I was doing some EGR emulator testing too. Starting to get some emulators going again. Emulators work well, but after i was done testing (as the emulators are already claimed), I went and plugged the EGR cable back into the valve. The CEL went on. Not sure what happened, but now it doesn't like being actually plugged into the EGR. Tonight I made up another emulator and hooked that up, and I'm good to go again.

The emulators of course had to give me some grief though. A few of them didn't work on first testing, so I whipped out the multimeter, to do some continuity checks and check some resistors. Multimeter was broken . Went to The Source to get a new one, as it happened to be the closest place that would have them and was still open. Get home with it and discover it takes one of those stupid 12V batteries (look like a half length AAA battery), and it doesn't come with it. WTF, who has those just lying around? By the time I realized this, they were already closed. I headed over there after work today to grab one of those batteries, get home, and give the multimeter a go. It was reading the resistance of every resistor on the emulator (and the spares I have) as 2 ohms. This new multimeter was busted too. Headed out again, returned that one, then went to Home Depot and grabbed a kinda nice one with all sorts of different features. Got home, and that one worked. Turns out I had fried a bunch of the resistors some how. Once I replaced them on one board, it started working. What a hassle.

Of course, that's not all the hassle either . I realized since I don't have my coupe around right now, I didn't have a Scangauge to clear codes quickly. This meant that I had to use the star machine to clear the codes when an emulator wasn't working. On the other hand, I didn't even have to start the car when they weren't working, as it would show you that it was failed, with the car just in position 1. Pros and cons...

[turbomar 13]

@Flossy Sorry to hear all that frustration you went thru these past couple days

Today I realized my horn wasn't working. After work, I found the problem to be corosion at the OE spade connector. I replaced that with with a shrinkable butt connector

[Francesco 71]

Replaced all the black panel screws holding the fenders to the door frames and the tailgate panel to the tailgate. About $1.50 *each* from the dealership.

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

Why did you replace the screws? Just to get a fresh new car look?

[Francesco 71]

Yep. The old ones were all rusty. All I need is some touch-up paint on the seat frames and door catches and it'll be new again.

[darren 192]

Yesterday, i took my muffler in to JPG Exhaust here in Oakville, and they welded the pipe back on! 20 minutes and 40 bucks later, i was out the door! It ain't pretty, but it looks like it'll hold. I'll get it re-mounted this weekend.

I highly recommend them. Busy shop, but fantastic prices and really nice people. http://jpgexhaust.com

[strawboss 5]

I do annual lubrication of my wiper linkage but will check on this soon, thanks.

[ishkabibble 2]

Picked it up from my service person. FINALLY diagnosed the A/C problem. Condensor and one connection leaking. :icon_sad: No idea of cost. Was MB going to do something about the lines? Not happy!

[darren 192]

I took my li'l guy in for its last maintenance (an "A" service) under my ownership! Got washed and thoroughly cleaned inside and out.

Oh, and I put my muffler back on today!

I also picked up my Used Vehicle Information Package from a Service Ontario office as well. Just have to get the safety certificate done, and that's it!

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

Got the cabrio all packed up just now. Ready to head off to Outsmarting the Dragon tomorrow morning!

[darren 192]

Ooooh, going to drive TotD?

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

Sure am!

http://outsmartingthedragon.com/

[kdubya 34]

Wife and I just got back from a trip through the rocky mountains with our smart. Noticed a little hard to take off from a stop, maybe from elevation, but otherwise it ran awesome. I also noticed we were the only smart on the road; didn't see another one on the whole trip. Went through Jasper, and icefields parkway. Worked as a great way to limit our shopping as we had limited space, lol.

[MikeT 744]

Today I drove the Canada 1 for the first time in 5 weeks! Lovely little car, I wish we had it in some of the places we were driving in back in Europe!

[darren 192]

Sure am!

http://outsmartingthedragon.com/

Damn… wish i'd known about this earlier!

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

I've now driven the cabrio on the dragon!

Also, I didn't get the radio code for the stock radio when I bought the cabrio, so I had called up Ogilvie Motors yesterday to get it. They told me I'd have to bring the car in so they could check my ownership, and get the serial number (Which I had already gotten...). Nope, not happening, especially since I was already out of the country. I emailed Grundig directly (through technik@grundig.com ) with my radio serial number, and they just emailed back my radio code. Easy as pie, and free too.

[darren 192]

I'm sure there's a huge market in North America for hot smart radios!

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

Oh, definitely! That's why the response from MB felt like such a money grab. They just wanted to charge me half an hour of labour, for getting the serial number that I already had. I'm glad Grundig weren't horrible about it. Thought I'd put the info out there though, in case anyone else ran into the same thing.

[darren 192]

Got my CDI emissions tested and safety certified today. Aside from a wee windshield chip i have to get fixed tomorrow, everything checked out A-OK! Suspension, brakes, everything. This little car was definitely put together right.

[Bessy 16]

Not my smart but, did 3 pairs of Reluctor Rings (two 450s, one 451), and installed a Brabus Suspension and aligned a 2009 Passion. And an oil change on a 451...4 Smarts total

Was a busy day in the hot sun, but gotta love working on the best cars out there

Learned lots about the 451, I hadn't done more than an oil change on one previous to today. But after doing the full suspension (springs, shocks and struts) and reluctors I'm pretty well taught on the small but important differences.

So I can comfortably say that I am extending my services to 451 smart owners in addition to 450s. "Springs and Rings" still a common failure looking at today's job (LF Spring Broken & LR Reluctor Ring on the 451)

Actually 3 cars today had Left Side Rings broken, that's 6 in a row for the Left side!

[FlossyTheSmart 81]

Got back from Outsmarting the Dragon today. AC doesn't work in the cabrio, and it was HOT every day! Even going at speed with the top down, I was sweating like a pig. Car kinda... smells like I was living in it for the last several days. I've got the top down in the garage with a fan inside to air it out a bit.

While out there, I was given a BMS wedge kit to straighten out the camber on the rear wheels. Barney said they would fit a 450 (maybe with a minor tweak on the spacer ring), so they'll probably be going on the cabrio.

The car performed well on the 1681 km each way, occasionally popping up to four blobs, although usually only when climbing long hills, while going 120 kph, after a few hours. I simply turned the heat on and blasted it out the open roof and windows for a few minutes, and it went back down to 3 blobs. Probably wasn't a real issue, since it was almost always above 30 Celsius outside, and I was really pushing it...

[Leadwing 565]

Turned over 40,000 kms. on Silverwing and went to the beach! Who says old guys can't multi-task?