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Should I Get A Smart Cdi As A Daily Commuter, 200km A Day?

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I currently have a 2004 Toyota Echo RS. It's got 210k, and has been serving me well as a daily commuting car, doing 200km a day (100km each way) to and from work. I live in Barrie and commute to Mississauga (for the Canadians here). The other 2 days a week, when I'm not working, my wife takes it to work and does about 160km round trip. So we do about 6k a month. We also have a minivan (as we have 3 kids), but the van is only for family outings.To me, fuel economy is a big issue, even in my economical Echo, as I currently spend about $550 a month in gas. I get about 6L/100km. So, I stumbled upon the Smart CDI and noticed it does 3.3L/100km. How realistic is it to achieve that figure? It's very appealing considering it's about half the fuel consumption.If it makes any difference, my driving is mainly 80% highway, 20% City and I cruise at about 110km/h. How expensive is maintenance? My Toyota, other than regular oil changes during the past year has been next to zero. I've just needed to balance tires, do an alignment, and regular maintenance, which has been very affordable.I noticed the Smart CDI was only available in 2005 and 2006 here in Canada. You can find them used for $4-7k, depending on condition and mileage? Is the CDI a worthy replacement for my Echo to save even more money on gas? I know it was meant to be a city dweller's car, but can a smart cdi survive doing 60k/yr? Will it be economical on maintenance?

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I would not recommend a 7 or 8 year old cdi as a replacement for your 9 year old echo. You will save on fuel but if you can not do all the maintenance on the cdi yourself you are looking at costly repairs. With finance rates where they are buying something new with fully warranty makes a lot of sense.

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I would not recommend a 7 or 8 year old cdi as a replacement for your 9 year old echo. You will save on fuel but if you can not do all the maintenance on the cdi yourself you are looking at costly repairs. With finance rates where they are buying something new with fully warranty makes a lot of sense.

I have a few alternatives.1. VW Jetta TDI - About $23k (before taxes and fees) and with 0% financing right now2. Chevy Cruze Turbo Diesel About $26k (before taxes and fees). No 0% offer, and mroe expensive than the Jetta, which has a well regarded TDI engine. The Cruze TD is unproven, as it's brand new3. Toyota Yaris - $15k, 0% financing. Yes, I know I won't get as good mileage as the Diesels, and will spend more on gas, but how long would it take me to recoup the money gained by going with one of the other 2?Also, during the past few hours I've been reading more about the CDI, and people are saying that since it's so light, mileage is easily affected by the wind. Apparently maintenance doesn't sem too cheap either. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Darn it...3.3L/100km sounded REALLY nice...I wish there were more diesel options in North America. It's unfortunate that people think hybrids are the way to go....

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I am not sure were you came across 3.3 LHK but the cdi is rated at 3.8 on the highway. Under perfect conditions it is possible to get down into the low 3's on the highway but average fuel consumption will be closer to 4 LHK. FE takes a hit in the winter and if it is quite cold, -20 or colder the cdi is not the most pleasant place to be.As for your 3 choices, if the diesels get you 5 LHK you are looking at about 8 years to make up the cost difference.

Edited by Huronlad

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HiI am in agreement with Huronlad. While you would save some money on diesel over your Echo's gas, the maintenance and repairs on the smart would quickly eat up all your savings and then some. Another car to look at, in my opinion, would be the Prius C. This car is about the same size as your Echo and being a hybrid should get 1.5 to 2 litres per 100 Km better than your Echo. It is also top rated for reliability.Personally, if it was me and your Echo is not a rustbucket, I would keep the Echo in reasonable good mechanical shape and just keep driving it. No car payments!!Good luck what ever you do.Roy

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60k km a year for any car is a dream....it should be good for 500k km if you maintain it well (the Toyota). Don't get a cdi.

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The smart would mean several comprimises, if you are willing to accept them it can work, but here are some of them (I also own a Jetta TDI for 13 years 500k)-the engine takes a long time to warm up, even worse then a VW TDI, so it is cold inside and you should take it easy on the car until it warms up-the smart is really under powered, 40hp. It can run with the pack, but it really shouldn't if you want to last and stay healthy where as the VW can put up with pretty severe abuse, climbing some of the hills around there will really stress the smart, especially with the weather you experience around there (wind, snow etc)-you really need a good experienced smart mechanic to keep the car going smoothly, either yourself or an indie shop that specializes, not some general mechanic, they have to be willing to work on it and research when needed as a ton of the problems are electrical based and require the proper scan software and knowledge-fuel economy is hardly better then the Jetta on the highway, in the city it is better, but not really any better at 110km/h the smart really starts to use fuel over 90km/h (I manage 3L/100 and keep it 90 or less and accelerate slowly)-smart parts are generally higher priced, and harder to source then most cars so again a specialist is key to keeping the car on the road not in the shop-smart cdi is a simple car OTHER then the electronics, however those electronics can stop the car from going anywhere so purchase one carefully-inspect harnesses etc. The VW is the kind of car that usually starts and can limp somewhere even when broken, the smart when it breaks usually means towing/not starting at all-it has very few inputs vs the VW, so still a simpler car-it is not a Toyota, it needs constant love to keep it right! Toyotas don't seem to care if they get any maintenace, but they rust out fast. The smart is unlikely to rust out (the floors can if neglected and filled up with salt inside) but otherwise will stay solid a longtime, meaning your investment will last a long time if you keep investing in it.VW's will outlast any ownership, but do have certain needs that most specialists know about.I guess to sum it up what I am saying is it can be a commuter with certain driving style adjustments/comprimises but you most certainly want to have a back up car when it needs love. Will it save you big money, no. It will use less. It will not be perfectly reliable. BUT it will not require a major investment ($5-8k) upfront to purchase and the likelyhood of it needing tons of work is lower since it is a simple car. If you drive one just imagine driving it with only half power, gives you an idea of what it was meant to do and it feels a ton happier at that power level (shifts etc). If you stress out of the little things this is not the car for you, if you are easy going and like to deal with stuff when it needs to be done then it could work...

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For what its worth, I have a 2006 cdi that I bought in Feb with 74,000 km on it. I drive it over 1500 km/week as I live 100 km from my office and go in almost every day each week. I have driven it 53,000 km since then. It is true that it is expensive to repair but the reality is that most cars are these days. I have driven it from Halifax to Quebec City twice and think nothing of 500 km each way trip. The cold in the winter was a bit of a bugger but I have had diesel VWs that were also slow to heat. I don't push it and try to stay at 100 km/h max.For me, its also about the goofyness of the car and I guess that I just like goofy cars.

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Honestly, considering where you live, the fact that any cdi you likely acquire for $4,000 is past it's prime (more so because of where you live), and because of your relatively sane experience with a Toyota product... take a pass. It's not worth it. 6 LHK versus a more realistic 4 LHK could save 1000 litres a year, true, but I would be wary of repair costs eating into this margin.If you're driving 200 km a day, and really must get a new car for some reason, get a newer Toyota, possibly a hybrid, or drive a manual transmission equipped newer Ford product, maybe a Fiesta. That would be a much surer bet.The answer would change if your locale was BC and you had a low km car with a few less kms driven daily.

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It's all been said well already, except that a hybrid likely isn't a good option. On the highway a hybrid will have worse mileage than a similarly sized and powered non-hybrid, the advantage of a hybrid is the ability to recover energy that would be lost during braking. If you don't use the brakes much all a hybrid does is burn gas to carry around the battery pack, motors etc.There are any number of cars better than the Echo for you, unfortunately you can't get them in North America. Maintain the Echo until something really big starts to go, then get a newer equivalent car.I love my CDI, have 220K km on it, plan on keeping it for a long time yet. But I can just barely justify it on a practical basis and my driving regime is almost perfect to make the smart shine. Without the mild Vancouver climate, high daily use without much speeds over 100-110, ability to do a lot of servicing myself and an excellent independent for the rest it still wouldn't make practical sense. If a diesel Corolla was available it would blow my choice out of the water.Good thing I love it so much!

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I do around 40-200km a on single drive on mine. 242,000km and just had my first repairs: alternator and starter which isn't bad at allMy other smarts I do the same and put on around 30,000km a year a no major issues. It's hit or miss

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I looked up the Transport Canada estimates for my 2007 Yaris and the 2013 Pruis C. The numbers for the Yaris are most likely similar to the numbers for your Echo.Yaris 7.0 l/100 Km City5.6 l/100 Km Hwy6.2 l/100 Km CombinedPrius C4.4 l/100 Km City5.1 l/100 Km Hwy4.7 l/100 Km CombinedIf you were doing all highway driving then you would save one litre of fuel per day over the Yaris. From a cost point of view most likely not justifiable. If you drive around the city IMO it would be. Roy

Edited by yellow bumble bee

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Our first cdi went to 250K km before some bad driver killed it from behind. They're good but can be tricky too. Hit and miss is about right.To me, of the two Toyotas, the Prius C looks a whole lot better than the new Yaris but having written that, neither can be had with heated seats, which is a deal killer for us at least. We probably would have bought the C if heated cloth seats had been available. We told the salesman that, but I doubt that fed back to their product planners, who still think small car buyers don't want any comfort features in their cars.

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Sorry to hijack this thread but the Prius C Technology with Premium Package does come with heated front seats. I had a chance to drive one last week. Now only if I was 40 years younger and it was a plug in, my Yaris would be sitting in their used car lot. Really nice car!P.S. I still love my smart.Roy

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You are right about the heaters, but the seats are not cloth, they are super nasty vinyl.The Prius C tech premium would have cost us over $10,700 more than the Ford Fiesta SE, which has all options we needed, including cloth heated seats! That's totally nuts, enough to buy 8000 litres of fuel, which will take the Fiesta 135,000 km before the C turns a wheel.

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I love my smart cars. :D I commute from Newcastle to midtown Toronto. Cruise at 110.Put snows on in winter but keep it parked during big snow days. (Coupe, cabrio is stored in winter months)see my fuelly figures for coupe.Every car has some drawbacks but would I buy another cdi, in a heartbeat.Do almost all my own services, oil changes are cheap and quick (I do at 5k intervals)tires are inexpensive, easy on brakes.Diesels love a good highway run.Dale

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I have to agree the smart can be fine for a long commute, I bought mine four years ago with 60,000 on it, it now has 190,000 and for one of those years was basically not driven due to job loss. It handled the 210 km per day fine for two years 100,000 km, and after sitting for most of the third year handled the last 10 months of 140 km per day just fine as well. It hasn't been flawless, but my biggest expense was an alternator at 184,000 km. The next biggest was both front springs at about 120000 km.. I did have to replace on front bearing in the last few months as well, besides that a set of brake bands and tires are the rest of my expenses for 130,000 km of driving, it has saved more than it has cost me for sure. I have never really babied it and it still runs well. That said if you can't work on it yourself I would not get one, and it would have to be a low milage one to make it worth your while ( and that can lead to a whole different set of problems than high milage). I will be keeping the one I have, and I love it, but unless it was a certain red Canada 1 I probably wouldn't buy another just because of the age of the cars now. In your position I would either keep the car you have now if it still in good condition and save as much as you can to get a newer car, or if you can afford to pay more than the cost of a used smart, I would probably get as new a VW diesel as I could afford. As has been mentioned above, on the highway the milage is not far off the smart, and really it would be a more usable car in general though not as fun or unique. I do think the VW drivetrain is designed a little more for durability than the smart's as well ( though as I said no issues there for me yet).

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My experience has been;Purchased in June 2009 from MB Downtown Toronto, with 24,500km, currently 195,500kmWorked in Mississauga, lived in Hamilton 130km round trip, this was also my only car.Lots of trips to Ottawa, and Southbend, IndianaNo major issues, front, brakes at 93,000km, and again at 195,000km, rears untouchedFront wheel bearings at 183,400kmI have logged every single litre of diesel, service, tire replacement, insurance, etc.My SMART has cost me $0.18 per km (all in).My FE is 4.08 LHK life time.My belief is if you drive it like is a Smart Car, not like its a race car it will serve you well.My worry is that there are no more CDI's coming into Canada anymore so any CDI you get now will be high KM or low KM and I don't know which one would be worse, as most people if have talked to that have had lots of issues also have lower km cars, and those that have less issues have high km, which to me says that these little buggers like to be driven regularly.I'm happy that my new job is only 6.5km from home, but I'm affraid that the car isn't going to like this.

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I think your commute is ideal for a Smart car BUT your Echo hasn't even reached its half life yet. You're doing all right why trade it off?My two bits.Carl

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The CDI smart is not a bad car but it need more cares than other makes of cars. I cross the Canada from Halifax to Victoria, I cross the complete USA and reach Mexico and I can tell you that a CDI smart is a good car for who need to drive for long distance.

http://clubsmartcar.com/index.php?showtopi...mp;#entry293665

http://clubsmartcar.com/index.php?showtopi...p;hl=california

I had alot of probelms with my cdi but I abused it more than often! I used this car as anything I need: Mover truck, pickup, ATV, camper, daily driving car, backhoe and even submarine!

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So, overall, it's not a bad car. I still appreciate this car even if it need more care than some other car. But if you love your toyota and you don't have any major issues with, don't replace it for a smart CDI. You know, when we own a relaible product as Toyota, we just forget that other cars may not be a reliable. So, I think that you will bitterly regret your move. That's what I believe so...

I still love my car but if I could go back to febuary 16th 2007, I probably never purchase this car. Why? Because I REALY HATE the mercedes benz dealers. Then when you own a smart product, you have no other choice but to be dependent of them for parts and for service if you're not handy.

Good luck!

Dom ;)

Edited by dieselkiki

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It's all been said well already, except that a hybrid likely isn't a good option. On the highway a hybrid will have worse mileage than a similarly sized and powered non-hybrid, the advantage of a hybrid is the ability to recover energy that would be lost during braking. If you don't use the brakes much all a hybrid does is burn gas to carry around the battery pack, motors etc.

Except no.

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Yeah, the whole party trick of a Hybrid is energy recovery. But the fact that people always spin incorrectly is the whole "They're worse on the highway" thing. Yes, logically you can think that the consumption would be higher on the highway, because there is less opportunity for energy capture - you're moving at a constant speed. But the whole thing is there's another layer here, that the drivetrain and engine are so freakishly optimized for low consumption that even at highway speeds the fuel use is far less than that of any other car. I'm talking about Prius, here - not the Honda IMA system. It just so happens that it gets even better when you're in the city because yes, you get back some of what you throw away when you decelerate.

I'll go head to head against anyone on the highway tank to tank with a TDI - and guaranteed my Prius will use less fuel per kilometre doing it. It's just fact. Spritmonitor it. Just did a 1200 km trip to the US and averaged 3.5 L/100 km return.

-Iain

Edited by Duck

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At what speed would you drive at during the comparison with the TDI? If you drove near the top speed of the Priusthe VW would return better mileage...

Edited by lebikerboy

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It is difficult for me driving that much and everyday.the CDI is so loud and bumpy, it is not a fun but torture.most of its merits can be realized in city only.

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I drive quite a bit I do 100-500km a day all in my smart. Mind you my smart is modded ideally highway driving I perfer a stiffer and wider ride for stability, remap for a little more kick and cruise for making the ride easy. I have no problems with long distance driving and 4.3L/100km I'm not going to complain one bit. BUT they do need allot of love now adays since they're getting up there with age, if I didn't own my own shop and had a billion back up cars I'd be sol. If I didn't have my shop or time I'd go for another VW Tdi they treated me well and had no costly repair bills, just regular Maintenance (and belts) and each of them I sold with 500k on the od still running a champ. Just my two cents rounded up.

Edited by dmoonen

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