Faults:

The door handle broke off on the driver's side, but just wear and tear, it's a 6 year old car and it was cheaply fixed.

General Comments:

The smart is the best car I've ever owned. I get 57 mpg every time I drive it, and it makes me smile when I'm driving.

The smart is a fantastic place to sit. The seats are supportive, visibility is great around the car, being surrounded entirely by glass. The controls are chunky and funky, although everything is plastic or carpeted (including the dashboard) everything feels well built.

The handling of the car around town is tight, and with the hard suspension, feels very much like a go-kart. However, on country roads, the hard suspension can give a jolty ride.

On motorways the car is fine until there's a wind. It makes the car lean to one side which feels disconcerting at speed. I've never had a problem with it and frequently drive long distances, but there are times I wish for a more relaxing drive in something less high-sided.

Faults:

The stalk, which made the lights work, broke.

I had two flat tyres during the six months I owned this car.

The roof smashed while I was driving the car, and the glass went out the car into oncoming traffic.

Two cars drove into the back wing of the car, and broke it.

General Comments:

The Smart car puts the fun into driving, but it managed to put a big dent in my wallet as well when things went wrong. This car is very quick with its turbo; it makes light work of slip roads onto motorways. This car also gets you noticed when driving about town; it's great to drive.

The engine was always reliable, and started first time every time.

However the car was not very comfortable on long journeys.

I have had numerous problems with this car, and each time it broke down, I had to ring the RAC. They found this car weird, as there is no spare tyre, and so each time I had a puncture, I had to wait for help to arrive, as well as afterwards waiting for the garage to order a new tyre, which was very time consuming and expensive.

When the roof smashed on this car, the RAC had never heard of a glass roof, and told me to drive home in showers of glass. This isn't RAC's fault, as they did all they could to accommodate this car. Losing the roof was the most scary incident I have ever been through.

I found Mercedes very unhelpful with all the problems I incurred. The nearest garage for me to have the car serviced was 30 miles away. I had to go there to pick up a new wing for the car, as it had been broken by 2 motorists driving into it. My experience of the garage is that each department (sales and parts) blame each other for the mistakes I encountered through the garage. Although they did try to help when I complained, and the part was then delivered to my place of work.