Hi everyone:newbie:
I'm a prolific watcher to this forum, just not a prolific poster - this is my first...
If anyone knows a bit about cars and can shed some light, I'd be really grateful
First of all I own an 05 plate Smart ForFour BRABUS, taking my wife to her mothers's yesterday I was driving down the A1(M) - a journey I do twice a day at least - just pulled into the slow lane doing about 65/70 and basically for a split second I thought I'd dropped the car into neutral (even though my hand was nowhere near the gear stick), looking again I could see the gear stick in the '5th' position.
So, I pulled onto the hard shoulder and stopped - the engine was still ticking over, so I turned it off and back on again - it started no trouble (just like it's done every day since I bought it).
Stuck it in first gear and tried to pull away and nothing !! - the car revs but doesn't move - just like your gunning the accelerator with the car in neutral, i tried every other gear to see if I could pull away and the same result.
My wife and I both quickly came to the same conclusion that we were ****ed, if you pardon my French. So, we immediately phoned Smart Assistance and a little under an hour later we had been 'flatbedded' off the motorway and taken back home, which luckily was only 2 miles from where the problem occured.
The recovery guy then offloaded my car and did a cursory inspection of the electronics and declared that the problem must reside with either the clutch or the gears..............I, myself tend to agree.
Actually I would lean more towards the 'clutch' as being the culprit as this was replaced almost exactly 1 month earlier because of a problem that I have read about numerous times on this forum, the ForFour 'crunchy gear' problem - this was happening in my car ALL the time in 1st and reverse gear and Smart of York, in their infinite wisdom declared the problem was with the clutch rather than the gears and consequently replaced it under warranty.
The car goes to Smart of Stockton on Monday to be looked at
So - can anyone shed some more light on what they might think the problem is ?
Oh, one more thing - I've gone a bit past my 1st service time limit because as BRABUS owners will know - the engine oil has to be replaced every 10,000 KMH's and when my car went in to have this done, the technician reset the sevice clock - after I pointed this out later the service guy said just deduct 7000 miles from the service interval figure given and that's when the first service is due - I've gone bit past that, my cars done 16,200 miles now - you see I've been working away and my wife's been driving the car and well, I neglected to tell her what happened !!
Do you think this will have a bearing on them repairing the car under warranty ? -after all it was their fault that the clock was reset, or do you think that this 'warranty' issue has no bearing on the 'clutch/gear' problem ?
well, thank you for listening - hope I haven't bored you and I'm looking forward to your responses
Best regards
John (North East)
I'm a prolific watcher to this forum, just not a prolific poster - this is my first...
If anyone knows a bit about cars and can shed some light, I'd be really grateful
First of all I own an 05 plate Smart ForFour BRABUS, taking my wife to her mothers's yesterday I was driving down the A1(M) - a journey I do twice a day at least - just pulled into the slow lane doing about 65/70 and basically for a split second I thought I'd dropped the car into neutral (even though my hand was nowhere near the gear stick), looking again I could see the gear stick in the '5th' position.
So, I pulled onto the hard shoulder and stopped - the engine was still ticking over, so I turned it off and back on again - it started no trouble (just like it's done every day since I bought it).
Stuck it in first gear and tried to pull away and nothing !! - the car revs but doesn't move - just like your gunning the accelerator with the car in neutral, i tried every other gear to see if I could pull away and the same result.
My wife and I both quickly came to the same conclusion that we were ****ed, if you pardon my French. So, we immediately phoned Smart Assistance and a little under an hour later we had been 'flatbedded' off the motorway and taken back home, which luckily was only 2 miles from where the problem occured.
The recovery guy then offloaded my car and did a cursory inspection of the electronics and declared that the problem must reside with either the clutch or the gears..............I, myself tend to agree.
Actually I would lean more towards the 'clutch' as being the culprit as this was replaced almost exactly 1 month earlier because of a problem that I have read about numerous times on this forum, the ForFour 'crunchy gear' problem - this was happening in my car ALL the time in 1st and reverse gear and Smart of York, in their infinite wisdom declared the problem was with the clutch rather than the gears and consequently replaced it under warranty.
The car goes to Smart of Stockton on Monday to be looked at
So - can anyone shed some more light on what they might think the problem is ?
Oh, one more thing - I've gone a bit past my 1st service time limit because as BRABUS owners will know - the engine oil has to be replaced every 10,000 KMH's and when my car went in to have this done, the technician reset the sevice clock - after I pointed this out later the service guy said just deduct 7000 miles from the service interval figure given and that's when the first service is due - I've gone bit past that, my cars done 16,200 miles now - you see I've been working away and my wife's been driving the car and well, I neglected to tell her what happened !!
Do you think this will have a bearing on them repairing the car under warranty ? -after all it was their fault that the clock was reset, or do you think that this 'warranty' issue has no bearing on the 'clutch/gear' problem ?
well, thank you for listening - hope I haven't bored you and I'm looking forward to your responses
Best regards
John (North East)
Doh! I forgot about the manual ones!! :redface: 
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