Thinking about taking my new smart (took delivery just over a month ago!) from D.C. to Springfield, OH (467 miles each way). The route takes me through some pretty steep mountinous areas of WV and PA. The last time I made this trip, I was driving my old car--a 2002 Buick Rendezvous (which had an AWFUL power to weight ratio), and the car STRUGGLED up every hill....big rigs were passing me easily, and I was FLOORING the gas. needless to say, I am a little nervous about the smart being able to make it up the hills at reasonable speeds without getting run off the road by angry drivers in faster cars. BUT, am also a little optimistic since this car has a manual mode. Can anyone give me any insight on what I should expect if I do decide to bite the bullet and take my smart instead of my boyfriend's audi a6???????? thanks!
Tags: altitude, distance, driving, high, hills, long, mountains, road, trip
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Robert Ricewasser on -
Your smart will perform quite well on mountainous roads. You will have to switch to manual mode and keep the RPM's between 3-4000 rpms. Hope you have a tachometer which makes it easy to stay in the power band. Otherwise, 4th gear and on steep grades downshift to third and you should be able to keep up with traffic.
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i usually drive it in manual mode, so i did get the tachometer :) thanks for the tip!!
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we live in BC Canada and have tons of mountains, hills etc. our 2006 fortwo goes up them great. Good luck and safe driving
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We took ours through the Rockies to the BC (Canada) coast with no problem at all. Manual mode does work best.
