Remember the Chevy Sprint? The 3 cylinder Suzuki sold by Chevrolet?

I worked for Dominos when they came out and a lot of drivers bought them as
delivery cars. I don't think any of the clutches lasted past 30,000 miles
and none of the Sprints made the 100,000 mile mark.

Then years before was the Chevy Cavalier, came out in 82 I think and we had
some of the earlier ones. We ran a whole fleet of these cars as delivery
vehicles. The bodies, engines & transmissions would easily go past 200,000
miles but the shifter plate had a bad habit of shearing off. The plate was
tacked in with three welds - the single weld would sheer then the other two
would flex until they broke. We would re-weld it in place and the Cavalier
would go another 50,000 or so before someone would shear the shifter plate
off again.

Thanks, Tom Hargrave
www.stir-plate.com
www.towercooler.com
www.kegkits.com
www.grow-sun.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
Scott Daniel - Turbovans
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2012 10:31 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Smart car opinions

I have driven a Canadian model, the turbo diesel .
They sure are cute.
That was in about 2007 ..
hardly any had ever been seen here .  People would stop, point, gawk, etc.

under-powered..
lurchy semi-automatic transmission.

also what I would call very likely a much better new car than a used one.

I have always noticed, that on cars with tiny engines ..
Americans drive the snot out of them to get them to get going ..
by the time one of these has say 80,000 miles on it, I'll bet it'll be
pretty tired..
engine wise , perhaps transmission wise too.

If Consumer Reports has a data on it ....good idea to see what they say..
A+ for cuteness though !

scott
turbovans.com

On 5/4/2012 12:38 AM, Karl Wolz wrote:
> Now that it's Friday, does anyone on list have any experience, good,
> bad, or otherwise, with Samrt cars?  Going up to look at one tomorrow.
>
> Karl Wolz
>
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