G&K conversion cars - SERVICE CENTERS

[Pantytec 0]

I'm starting to get a little nervous. Is anyone out there getting the run aroundregarding providing any services for your G&K Fortwo? My only G&K dealerin Colorado won't touch my car with a 100 foot pole. He's the biggest ass inColorado. I didn't buy it from him, so he won't provide maintance or repairs,or sell parts to anyone who didn't buy the car from him. What a guy eh?I called Smart USA this morning and they also said there dealers probablywon't be providing Service for the G&K greymarket cars. Kinda blows me awayto be honest. What now?And no, I don't want to sell mine to get the new one. Nothing wrong with the new one,but I like my 2005.

[hodad66 0]

I'm wondering the same thing! I haven't purchased yet but was told that any Mercedes Benz dealer would service the vehicle.Warranty... 3 years $750..... Any info folks?

[Paroyboy 0]

I was told something like that when I was thinking of getting a Mini. I was concerned that the nearest dealer was 50+ miles away. The salesman told me that any BMW dealer would service it. WRONG! I asked the two nearest BMW dealers if they worked on them and each time got a resounding NO. No specific dealer/service network is what kept me from jumping on a converted Smart.

[davek 0]

No specific dealer/service network is what kept me from jumping on a converted Smart.

Ditto. This is likely to be a black eye for the Smart in the end, thanks to ZAP and G&K's inconsistent dealers pulling this crap. The service issue was the #1 reason I held off, second only by the lack of diesel models available without skirting the EPA regs and sneaking a Canadian model south. I hope and pray the diehard ZAPPer's and GKer's get at least a little compation from the new Penske dealers coming into the picture next year. Whether any of the parts in the 2nd generation models fit the older cars is the real question:(

[Pantytec 0]

I talked to an administrator pretty high up today from Smart USA. The G&K conversion cars are like a big "no no", as ifthey're talkin a whole different make and model of car. They were clear and almost downright belittling as if what we'redriving shouldn't even be in the states until their "superior model" hits the shores Jan, 2008. She made the suggestionto sell mine and get an 2008 and then it would be supported. Anyways, we're out in the cold really. Call George at G&K and he knows of one garage that can do oil changes in Southern California.One whole garage? Wow!Furthermore, approach any Mercedes Benz Dealer and ask to speak with the Service Manager.... and ask him/her straight up, if any of his/hertechs have gone through Smart training. And if they are straight shooters, the answer will be no. Glausser and Murray Motors in Coloradostraight up said, NO, their techs have not attended Smart training. Ok, this is unsettling. My car doesn't even have a 1000 miles on it,and I shouldn't worry. But i'm talking down the road. oh, and I bet very few parts of the new model will fit the older gen.

[smartie yank 0]

The guy who runs a local independent repair shop specializing in Mercedes is very helpful on any repair issues. I do my own service, a very easy car to work on.The local guy has a friend in the Seattle area who has a star computer set up. I don't know about warrenty issues because I haven't had any. Having worked in truck repair for years, I'm much more interested in who is twisting the wrenches than who owns the shop.Just because Mercedes doesn't want to openly acknowledge our smarts, they are machines and people can fix them when needed.

[Pantytec 0]

damn i didn't even think of that... George & George at ProStar Mercedes in Denver on Broadway would easily take my car in if needed something fixed.Younger George would get a kick out of it.Colorado folks... Call these guys, they took care of me when I had my 190E and C230. Really nice guys. Whatever you do stay away from "S.T." atElizabeth RV. If you didn't buy your Fortwo from him, he will not help you.. He's a serious creep, and don't give him any business. I really want to get that DVD shop manual now.

[Fred J 0]

We all feel sorry for anyone who has a conversion and is encountering service issues. Having said that, it has been widely discussed here for the past 3 years that the converted cars were a crap shoot and should be treated as a "buyer beware" purchase. Most owners have or will have, to rely on their own abilities or locate an independant to service them. A lot have had good success in this regard. It is completely understandable, and Mercedes layed out the rules a few years ago, that they will have nothing to do with ZAP or G&K cars. With all the modifications that G&K did to the cars, and I might add aren't prepared to share their proprietory information with anyone, then the best thing MB can do is to totally distance themselves from the converted cars. The information and advise has been out there, but if a person wanted to take a chance and roll the dice, then that was their choice to make. Good luck down the road, but please don't lay any problems at MB's or UAG's feet.

[Fred J 0]

I'm starting to get a little nervous. My only G&K dealerin Colorado won't touch my car with a 100 foot pole. I called Smart USA this morning and they also said there dealers probablywon't be providing Service for the G&K greymarket cars. Kinda blows me awayto be honest. What now?

Sorry my friend, but the time to get nervous and be blown away would have been before you bought the car, knowing the mine field that you may be getting into. If your own G&K dealer won't touch the car, then why would you expect smart or MB to open the can of worms?

[Fred J 0]

I'm wondering the same thing! I haven't purchased yet but was told that any Mercedes Benz dealer would service the vehicle.Warranty... 3 years $750..... Any info folks?

The pressure must be starting to be applied to move any new G&K cars before they become dead ducks once the 2008's land in America. Your sales guy will tell you anything to try for the sale, including a total lie that he is well aware of that MB will have nothing to do with the greymarkets. You have to admit that the guy has B_ _LS to ask for $750 for a warranty that he knows you won't be able to claim on with no one to service the car. Why would anyone pay for a warranty that would come included with a new car? These guys that ZAP/G&K have suckered in as dealers have to be the bottom of the pecking order among car dealers. Now they are trying to figure out how to recoup their franchise fee, knowing full well it won't be by honestly selling smarts. You can bet the farm that UAG would not even read their application for a dealership and would give even less consideration to making them look good by trying to service the cars. Save your money and buy a 2008 from the dealer that you know will be there to look after you after the sale.

[hodad66 0]

Thanks for the info & advice all. Once I compared the two I liked the interior more & definitely the colors. Oh well.....back to waiting.

[rrrucke 0]

Excuse my language but that's truly F'Up! Diehards bought these Zap cars and they maybe stuck with no service because of the conversion. I'm floored by this idea (which sounds like it's becoming a reality). I can't see smart just letting the earlier models die in the dust. That decision could have an ill affect on the brand. By the way, how many US converted cars are we talking about? Thanks, Regina

[hodad66 0]

You have to admit that the guy has B_ _LS to ask for $750 for a warranty that he knows you won't be able to claim on with no one to service the car.

That was at an out of state dealer priced at $21,900.... another dealer (50 miles away)is asking $24,900. I may drive over there just to see & test drive the vehicle.The local dealer is ordering them in lots of 15 at a time.

[davek 0]

Excuse my language but that's truly F'Up! Diehards bought these Zap cars and they maybe stuck with no service because of the conversion. I'm floored by this idea (which sounds like it's becoming a reality). I can't see smart just letting the earlier models die in the dust. That decision could have an ill affect on the brand. By the way, how many US converted cars are we talking about? Thanks, Regina

Regina, There alot more Smarts in the states than there are owners for currently, the unsold inventory that G&K and ZAP have is not moving very quickly cocnsidering the upcoming 2nd generations with FULL blessing by the EPA, National Carsh Safety institute, MERCEDES, and a few other rather important players. Just because the 1st generation Smarts have been brought to the states through the back door does not mean that Daimler or Penske owes the grey market owners ANYTHING. The whole issue with a grey market product is the way it is introduced to the consumer, it is an AS/IS purchase with no support from the manufacturer. You have to understand the way a service dept at a dealership works, if they don't have full parts and service manuals to support the car, they will not be able to do much of anything with it. Mercedes was not happy with the hackwork that ZAP and G&K was performing on their cars, if they thought their 1st generation cars were capable of being imported directly to the US without design changes, they would have done so. I hold no sympathy to the 1st generation owners who bought these cars from a crooked backhanded company like ZAP or even those who went through G&K. The cars and their owners have no right to hold ANY kind of grudge against Penkse or Daimler. There have been grey market vehicles in this country for years, which few dealers will touch due to software support, diagnostic incompatible hardware and the biggest issue; no way to legitimately certify their mechanics for the grey market models. If you want a certified technician to work on your car, pay a Mercedes mechanic for a vacation to Europe and send them through the certification course yourself. Make sure you factor in the annual retraining and technician service bulletins they will need to subscribe to. This is a VERY daunting task. If you are able to get a used diagnostic scanner from Europe somewhere, preferably England or Germany so the scan tool has English text options, you will be muchc better off to just perform the checks yourself or find a local mom and pop shop to do it for you with your test equipment. Parts will still need to be ordered from Europe if you expect the VIN# to reference correctly though. (VIN#'s are the glossary/index reference for every built since they were standardized). Back when I first joined this forum, I brought up these exact issues in more than one thread. I was left with only one possible option after I finished my research: Find a way to legally import a car from Calgary into Montana. This would have to be in conjuncction with an extended guest worker visa to Canada to work at a Smart dealer and get factory trained myself. The long shot option was to offer G&K conversions to sign me on as a G&K warranty service station. I may still do this if the # of 1st generation cars proves to be worth the investment to do it. By the way, I have been a factory trained as well as ASE certified tech for passenger cars and medium/heavy duty trucks for several years. I have worked for multiple dealers in the past. Unlike "you" as a consumer, I understand the risk involved in a dealership acting outside of its dealer/manufacturer agreements. You need to really think about what your posted expectations would cost a local Penske dealer, not to mention the parts network Mercedes would have to rollout to support a grey market limited production car that was never scaled up for release to the states. There is NO WAY to just overlap the 2 cars in the parts network, it doesn't work like that without huge network investments. Not something I'd want to do for a car I never made any intention to sell to a demographic region.

[Fred J 0]

Regina - As a relative new comer to the smart world, you may think that MB/smart should service these conversion cars. I would suggest that you go back a few years to trace the ZAP story. Without going into a rehash of it, a few points to consider. ZAP never was authourized to convert smarts by smart or MB. ZAP never had a supply of cars from smart or MB. ZAP dealt with equally shady sources in Europe to acquire a few cars. ZAP sold franchises at vastly inflated prices to gullable dealer wanna bee's. ZAP were not licenced to convert the cars and so enter G&K into the picture. (I beleive when last heard of, G&K were feuding with ZAP over ownership of propietory information) ZAP never could deliver cars in quantity to these "dealers". ZAP was more of a stock market manipulation than a genuine business venture. ZAP strongest asset was their ability to fire off press releases. A classic one was when they claimed to have One Billion Dollars worth of orders on the books. ZAP sold the dream to an unsuspecting public. ZAP did deliver a few cars strategically placed. They salted the mine so to speak, with great fanfare and the delivery of one car in Las Vegas to a lawyer. ZAP sold these cars with such things as keys missing (customers were told to buy their own key from any locksmith), No owner's manuals, Gaping holes in the dash where the previously factory installed radios had been removed (customers were told they could have one for several hundred dollars extra). .... and the saga goes on. The mess that exists now lies solely on the shoulders of ZAP. And you want MB to bail them out? Why? For more information you might like to read all the previous discussions on this sore point along the road to smart arriving in America. For any owners of ZAPs, please don't take any of this as a slight against yourselves. You went in with eyes wide open and a lot have great satisfaction with their purchase with no complaints. Some owners bought direct from G&K and appear to have had the reasonable success with follow-up problems. At least George answers his phone. For this we are truly greatful. Good luck and happy motoring to all.

[rrrucke 0]

Fred/Dave,Thank you for the insight on the grey market of smart. From what Zap told me and from what I read online through their press releases, they worked a deal with MB to sell the cars in the USA. From what you are saying, there was never an official business relationship. So, how is it possible that they were able to sell this car and call it a smart? Why didn't MB stop them? I just don't understand how they could legally get away with this.Regina

[SCHMART 0]

they bought the cars and resold them. The dealer I bought mine from has a warrranty for two years. I do any service I can and also have used supersmart in Canada when I am there...parts have not been an issue as Smart in Canada has been helpful in providing anything I need...also I buy alot of spare parts on German Ebay and ''Ebay.UK

[MikeT 744]

Right, having owned orphaned cars for decades (Renault and Peugeot) where there is a will, there is a way. It may not be as convenient as taking it to your local smart dealer, but I'm sure it's not going to be all that dire.

[davek 0]

Fred/Dave,Thank you for the insight on the grey market of smart. From what Zap told me and from what I read online through their press releases, they worked a deal with MB to sell the cars in the USA. From what you are saying, there was never an official business relationship. So, how is it possible that they were able to sell this car and call it a smart? Why didn't MB stop them? I just don't understand how they could legally get away with this.Regina

ZAP "proposed" a business plan to Mercedes, which was outlined in their lawsuit towards Mercedes. Nothing was ever agreed upon with Mercedes or signed. Mercedes had ALOT of reservations in what ZAP was trying to do, mainly their eager offer to modify the cars from Mercedes original engineering to push them in the doors of the USA. Mercedes is not stupid, they are a world power automotive manufacturer, they didn't need ZAP's influence to import the car to the states. At the time the Smart was designed, it was being planned for Europe, not the USA. You have to remember the time period that the Smart was developed in, early 1990's. We (the USA) were still sucking down every drop of oil we could feed our SUV's with. There was no reason for anyone to consider a sub compact vehicle then, Mercedes knew the market was not ready for it. ZAP was/is very good about publishing lots of information that is heavily slanted to their side of things. You have to be very careful what you take away from reading their articles. The greenie type groups who have anb axe to grind against large sized automobiles were supporting ZAP and promoting the misinformation even further. As for Mercedes stopping them, they did stop them. Daimler put a do not touch order out to all of its dealers in the Europe and refused to support any ZAP orders. They succumbed to the requests by consumers to bring the car to the states. The final part of getting ZAP out of their business came when they awarded the exclusive rights and import contract to Penske. The minute Penske and Daimler signed that agreement, ZAP was finally shutdown from trying to squeeze their way into Mercedes business. Daimler is not stupid, they saw a nuisance middleman trying to target their intellectual property rights and engineering designs with the sole intent to get their fingers in the cookie jar. If ZAP had a workable business plan that met the standards Mercedes expects of its dealers, I'm sure things would have been very different. When ZAP asked for approval and then went around Mercedes back to import the cars secondhand, I'm sure that was the turning point for Mercedes decision to swat the fly. I'm quite sure that if someone came up to you off the street and told you they wanted to have exclusive rights to take over sales of your product with no real professional plan to account for things like 10 year federally mandated parts support/service, along with a reputable dealer image, you would do the same thing. I know I'd be pretty upset as a Mercedes dealer if I was told that I was still expected to live up the standards of my dealer contract with daimlerbenz while some shady misfit failed to even meet the initial startup requirements My distaste for the current Smart fiasco lies solely with the meddling of ZAP, not their customers and not the dealers who albeit gullible for jumping without proper research were given a bad batch of goods. I haven't had enough dealing with G&K to really build an opinion of them, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they will try to make good on their import conversions. They have been around a long time and done well with their other grey market models/brands. I'm not sure if the money is/was there in the vehicle class of a Smart compared to their high end Mercedes/Lamborghini/Ferrari exotics, which is likely why they had to mark the cars up so much over their sticker price across the pond. It's just more apparent in a lower priced car compared to a 6 figure sportscar/supercar's % . Enjoy your car, if you have the means to transport or drive the car to Canada for service, you will likely be fine. I had good responses from the Calgary based dealers when we looked into buying a Smart in Montana. The unexpected transfer to Alabama is what finally convinced me to just wait and see, thankfully.

[DJW 0]

davekDavid that is the nice thing about using it on the back of the HDT. If we need to have work done on the smart that we can not get done in the US we could always just plan a trip up to Canda. Hopefully with how we plan on using it it will last a long time with just routine maintance.Dennis

[Pantytec 0]

We all feel sorry for anyone who has a conversion and is encountering service issues. Having said that, it has been widely discussed here for the past 3 years that the converted cars were a crap shoot and should be treated as a "buyer beware" purchase. Most owners have or will have, to rely on their own abilities or locate an independant to service them. A lot have had good success in this regard. It is completely understandable, and Mercedes layed out the rules a few years ago, that they will have nothing to do with ZAP or G&K cars. With all the modifications that G&K did to the cars, and I might add aren't prepared to share their proprietory information with anyone, then the best thing MB can do is to totally distance themselves from the converted cars. The information and advise has been out there, but if a person wanted to take a chance and roll the dice, then that was their choice to make. Good luck down the road, but please don't lay any problems at MB's or UAG's feet.

Fred, And I feel sorry for you for buying one of the cheaper and very un-Mercedes new models. I'll find service. Negative posts like yours and "know-it-alls" makes me feel sorry for all the new Smart posers coming out of the wood work. I would much rather have a euro-spec Smart than your Daimler Mitsubishi combo. Fred J, you suck.

[hodad66 0]

That was interesrting The Canadian Smart owner has the benefit of a dealer base &support. I too prefer the look of the MB Smart but am not aboutto enter into a purchase where I don't even know who will work on my car.I don't work on my vehicles & don't expect to start now. Am I happy that the new Smart is more bland? No Do I wish thatI could purchase a diesel Smart? YesWhat doesn't make sense is to pay a premium price for a vehiclewhich may bring you nothing but headaches. I'm sure that mostof these vehicles will perform with little or no problems. That said,I still want to be able to go to a local dealer with trained mechanicsif there is a problem.Add to that the possibility that I may get into the Smart for 10K less?Now is that Smart or what?

[MikeT 744]

... I feel sorry for you for buying one of the cheaper and very un-Mercedes new models. I'll find service. Negative posts like yours and "know-it-alls" makes me feel sorry for all the new Smart posers coming out of the wood work. I would much rather have a euro-spec Smart than your Daimler Mitsubishi combo.

Fred has a 2005 model fortwo cdi, Mercedes cdi engine, not a 451.

[Pantytec 0]

so why is he breakin my balls? Who likes lectures? I know I don't! I'm not a fan of Fred. I have 567 miles on mine. I won't need service for quite a while. It's strickly a weekend car for me.

[MikeT 744]

Yeah the comments were a bit harsh IMO. I know a couple of people with G&K 450s and they couldn't be happier.....