Obviously, parking this car = the business. Ms. AC routinely has to park at 10 pm on weeknights, which – with an ordinary car – would require at least 10-15 minutes of time spent hunting for a spot (and often more than that.) With the smartcar, she can almost always find a spot within half a block of our building on her first pass. What this is worth to us – in terms of peace of mind (her safety, the lack of hassle and anticipatory fretting during the drive home about whether she’ll find a spot or not) – is almost impossible to tabulate.
The drawback is that we are, unfortunately, still a two-car household. The other car is an old Toyota Echo on which we pay a mere pittance for insurance. The Echo gets used maybe once a week, if that. So, the smartcar is a somewhat selfish car, in a sense. Like, it’s incredibly practical, and we feel like we have all this freedom to come and go as we please, but no one else benefits from it – because, by definition, we can’t drive anyone else around. But since the Echo isn’t exactly a burden, we haven’t found that we have any incentive to get rid of it. Which makes us feel selfish, I guess.
Back to smarty: it’s cool that the engine is in the back. The car is very stable and fun to drive, and it handles really well. We’re due for some sort of transmission upgrade, which I hope will get rid of a weird lilt when the car shifts into second gear. The car has a hybrid manual transmission – you can actually disable the automatic transmission and do a weird kind of clutch-less shifting using tabs on the steering wheel. I suppose if we dealt with more hills, we might actually use that…? As it is, I’ve used the fake manual transmission for novelty purposes but never for any meaningful activity.
It’s a light car. It can get rocked a bit by heavy winds, but so can, you know, the Echo.
People definitely stare, though. This is not a good car for people who like to pick their noses when stopped at a light, for example.
Also, parallel parking is weird when you don’t have a back.
The sound system is meh, though I like the auxiliary input and the fact that it has a built-in ipod charger. The GPS that comes with it actually runs off of the dvd player (I know, right? It has a dvd player…), and the stock GPS is definitely alright, but again, not great. Mileage? Can’t complain – easily in the mid-30s per gallon, could easily crack 40 if we spent more time on the highway – good since the the tank is just under 8 gallons, which isn’t much.
All told? It’s cheaper and smaller than, say, a Yaris or a Honda Fit. We’ll see in 5 years what kinds of mechanical issues arise, but from our very limited experience, the car is well worth it. We’re taking it to Rehoboth for a few days and I can't wait to see what it feels like to be on vacation in this thing.
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