Smart Car Battery

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Permalink Reply by Ian Pellant on August 24, 2009 at 9:39pm

I started having what appears to be battery problems a few weeks ago. I have the pulse with turbo, fog lights, "primo" pack (similar to US comfort pack), heated leather seats and mirrors (heating never used in the Tropics), air con on all the time. 40 AH battery as standard. The first problems were obvious lack of cranking power when the solenoid engaged and the starter groaned and moaned. A check of the battery showed that the negative terminal had never been tightened at delivery. Tightened that, sort of fixed the problem for a few weeks... then it got worse. This past Sunday, it took five tries to start the car. (Listen to attached wav file). Once the car has fired up, subsequent starts during the day have been instant.
At 11 months old, the battery is still under warranty. The smart centre will probably replace it... they have had it overnight and I'm waiting to hear from them. The 60 AH battery is now almost standard here (Australia) because all the 2009 non-turbo smarts come with mhd with 60 Ah battery. The mhd has a high charge rate belt driven dynamo / starter, not the separate starter and alternator that the US and my car has.
Has anyone with the upgrade to the 60 AH battery noticed any difference?
Can the old altnerator keep it fully charged?

Attachments:

• smart cold start 230809.wav, 341 KB

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Permalink Reply by 451 Kahn on August 25, 2009 at 11:08pm

Mine works fine.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Pellant on August 25, 2009 at 11:50pm

The smart centre diagnosed the starting problems to be the Crankshaft Position Sensor... and the 40 AH battery seems to be fine after having the posts cleaned and the connectors tightened up... a severe dent in confidence over the delivery check !
The ScanGauge is now showing the (11 month) old battery voltage holding at 12.5 to 12.6 - where a good battery should be; an occasional charge top up can be seen at around 14V. So the alternator does seem to have plenty of reserve capacity and a 60AH should be fine as long as the car is driven for a while each week. It may take a bit longer than a 40AH to keep topped up... dunno.
The crankshaft sensor, on the other hand, is now my worry until it gets replaced next week. The car started perfectly this morning and runs perfectly, so the sensor is behaving itself, today. Whether or not the battery dropping to about 3/4 of full charge was a cause for the sensor to go dicky, I have no idea. All I do know is that it started playing up the morning after a 4.5 hour night drive... that may have taken the edge of the battery when it was not being charged properly, due to poor connections.

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Permalink Reply by Dave on August 28, 2009 at 11:08pm

After having the battery go dead 3 times and finally having it flatbedded to the dealer the bulletin came out that told them they needed to replace the battery with a bigger one. This car is really different with a dead battery!! You can't get it out of gear, the alarm freaks out when you try to charge it or jump it!!

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Permalink Reply by 451 Kahn on August 30, 2009 at 8:02pm

Every Smart owner should change their battery ASAP or be stuck one day.

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Permalink Reply by mr bad example on August 30, 2009 at 8:15pm

i have a pure with alarm, i got the upgrade. the original cranked and started the car at -8F, my smart is a daily driver.

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Permalink Reply by Tony on August 30, 2009 at 8:27pm

I've not had any battery issues on mine. It was swapped out at the 2.0 upgrade. I drive 7 miles round trip each day to and from work, plus a dash to a local eatery nearly every day. These short drives are mixed in with the occasional "ENTIRE DAY" in the car darting all over central Florida. On those days I might spend 8 hours in the car, often at idle for 1 to 2 hour periods. As I am in the car during those times, the AC is on, usaully full blast and the sound system is on - Upgraded and with a sizeable amp pushing a compact 10" sub. So far, after a year and 22 days (whose counting) of this type of driving, racking up about 13K I've had no issues with the charging system. Let's hope this smart keeps on going.

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Permalink Reply by mr bad example on August 30, 2009 at 8:47pm

i think this is an issue to those who use the smart as a second car. if you have the luxury of having another vehicle for prime mobility and drive the smart occasionally, for fun, the alarm and other systems may drain the battery over time.

i live in the midwest, it gets cold here, that's when batteries get weak. if you drive it daily, you'll never have a problem. it's the "novelty" drivers, the ones who take their smart once every week or two who have the problems.

the smart "purist", whose daily transport is their smart, will never see this problem, but i like the idea of a 50% larger battery for those cold winter mornings...

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Permalink Reply by 451 Kahn on August 30, 2009 at 9:15pm

How about you go on a vacation and park your car at the airport.
At your return the can refuses to start and your vacation ends up not all that fun.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Pellant on August 30, 2009 at 9:17pm

Yep... it's the glass half full thingy...
The battery is only a reservoir for energy. What you take out must be put be back in (plus a bit).
If you do cold winter starts, turn on all the heating and lights, drive 5 miles to and from work, you may be taking out more than the charging system is putting back in. Eventually the battery may be drained below cranking ability and you are stuck.
Did the 800 km round trip over the weekend (Aus is 16 time zone hours ahead of the USA) and stopped monitoring the Voltage on the ScanGauge after the first hundred or so. Voltage stayed steady at 12.5. Rarely did it jump to 14 V which have indicated a full charge from the alternator... so my 40 Ah battery lives on... 12 months warranty expires end of September... I'm watching it closely, now it's back to town driving.
One question though: Has anyone confirmed that the USA 40 AH battery is original Euro smart sourced or was it a US battery that was fitted to the new cars. Batteries are a whole lot cheaper in the US than most places in the world.

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Permalink Reply by donnyonee on September 2, 2009 at 3:27am

i went ahead and bought 1 of the 34/78? batterys from pepboys, maybe it was 875-900 cca. anyways its the biggest that fits. i run some camping equipment with it and so far no problem.

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Permalink Reply by nikolay rocafuerte on September 12, 2009 at 12:56pm

i have 2 amplifiers 3000 watts totall four speakers two tweeter and a jl w7 subwoofer to the origianl battery with hids and i never had a problem withthe original baterry and it died on me once cuz i left the lights

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