My wife is having a problem with her car not going in to gear. It generally seems to show up when she is trying to quickly shift from forward to reverse like in doing a 3 point turn or parallel parking. When this happens it does not go into gear. You can move the shift lever to forward or reverse gas it and nothing happens. After several restarts generally it will go into gear. It has only happened once while I was around and cleared itself up with the first restart so I am not sure if it was a brake pedal depress or what that cleared the problem. This seams like it could be a potentially dangerous problem... Any ideas?
Replies to This Discussion
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You may want to look up the gear shifter lube issue. Sounds like the issue people are having with lubracation.
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A 3 point turn in a smart???? Come on.....Sounds like tha same problem a lot of people have had. I ahve been lucky so far....
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I got my car in September 2008. I was having the same problem. They had it in the shop and had to replace something. (I can't remember but I'm thinking something to do with the clutch). They got the part in but then realized they had to have a special tool to put it in so they had it a few extra days. No problems since they fixed the problem. Said it was something they discovered after my car had left the assembly line.
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Thanks Barbara... That is the conclusion I came to through my research. This is not a gear shifter issue. The lever you can always move the lever as I stated. Also it is not a 3 bar engine management issue. Don't get the 3 bars... I saw somewhere that they needed to swap out the existing clutch with one of a different material. However, I am still trying to get it into the shop.
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Permalink Reply by smarttask on -
Change your wife, problem solved...................If that dose'nt work you must rember that the car must be at a standstill with the brake pedal pressed, I don't know what the difference is in the states but reading this forum you seem to be having a lot of problems with the shift lever not engaging a gear. I am a 10 year veteran Smart owner and am now on my 4th Smart sence 1999 and all i have ever had to do was change the filter and oil..................
If it is a problem with the Smart and not your wife take it back and demand a replacement car until its fixed free of charge.
Roger
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Roger, good to hear you believe the smart to be a reliable car. We will soon see how the 451 holds up. My wife averages around 40k miles a year. So it won't take long. The car we replaced was a 2000 Subaru still going strong after over 250K miles. I had to have the front axles replaced once (CV Joints), did the timing belt twice and I have went through some brake pads and a couple of batteries. If I can get the same reliability out of the smart I will be more than happy. As to the shifting issue, The gear lever issue I believe is that it pretty much locks up... will not move. Mine will move but will not engage a gear. Some times even after multiple restarts and pushing the brake pedal down very forcefully.
Darin
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