To survive...Smart Cars need to be sold thru Mercedes dealerships...

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Permalink Reply by George on February 18, 2010 at 6:59pm

I have to agree with you on what you said. My local dealer is the Mercedes store, but they have a separate show room on the other end of the building for smarts. I have no idea of how many dealerships are stand alone smart dealers, but things are not looking good for a lot of the dealers right now.
I was at the local new car show this past weekend. Smart was there, but not in a very good area. They were right across from the snack bar. Granted most poople had to pass the smart display to enter the main exibition hall, but they could of had better exposure. The thing that really got to me was there were no smart specialists on duty. Our local club president and his twin brother took turns manning the display. He told me that two of the smart specialists had quit and the one left was having to work the dealership. There were several people looking at the cars while I was there, but to leave the display to an owner-enthusiast to take care of business is unacceptable.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew D. Clauss on February 18, 2010 at 8:38pm

I know that the car dealers have to make money but why not tie the brand to the parent company here in the USA.How do the dealers work in other contries?? Mabe the new model for dealers needs to start with being SMART like the name suggest.
I love my car and the way it performs. I have not had so much fun driving on the roads in twenty plus years. It has done a great job with the snow we have had in Pa. with snow tyres on it. I have no complaints at all.
But can I tell someone to go ahead and buy one knowing that there is not a close dealer (with in an hours drive) no way.
So if the plan is to let Smart Die it will be a shame.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Pellant 1 day ago

Here in Australia, smart is sold by M-B Dealerships. Service is at M-B dealerships - which are widespread. If smart was a separate entity, it could not survive. Australia has a population of around 22m compared to the USA with around 280m... the numbers here could never match the USA.

Fully agree with Andrew, I've not had as much fun driving as I do now in the smart for over 30 years. The last fun car I had was a Honda 600 (600cc twin cylinder, air cooled). I then progressed over the years to a Honda Passport (aka Isuzu Rodeo) which I owned in the USA for a decade. I downsized a lot to the smart 451 and rarely miss the bigger truck.

I have moved (again). Am now in Townsville, a good 4.5 hour drive from Cairns where I bought the smart. Local support is at M-B; they do not display smart... but there a few around here, including at least one roadster (must take a pic of it and post hereon). And that is the other key issue. Take a very small car market like Australia and offer product diversity and then support it for the product life by the parent company service centres. a "smart Australia" standalone company would soon go broke; it needs the M-B network.

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