youtube.com/drivelife/the_first_drive_in_our_cheap_smart_car_it_s_hilarious

4 excerpts.

Excerpt

youtube.com/drivelife/the_first_drive_in_our_cheap_smart_car_it_s_hilarious · p. 1 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

hi guys welcome back to the drive live channel today's video you join me for the first drive in the smarts now i have driven it before obviously to get it home but um was the first one we've got first drive we have on the channel so um why not make it its own video why not um so for those who don't know um the last video we um or the last video with this car we announced that we bought a smart car um and uh here she is it's uh 700 kilos of hilarity and fuel saving man maths really um the idea was that we could buy and run this car for less than it would cost us to daily drive the jeep um so it's going to save us an absolute fortune because this will do 70 to the gallon um it's also lpg so i'll do a video on that later on so it's an lpg car as well so instead of paying one pound 60 a gallon petrol we'll be paying 83p i've just found it for my local um lpg place i suppose so um we're definitely uh fingers crossed gonna be saving some money if it's reliable that is one of the cheapest in the uk um it's got a few external issues but um overall mechanically he seems brilliant touch wood and on the interior here he is immaculate so let's take it out on an open road um i look ridiculous in it everybody looks at me and just laughs but the joke's on them because they're still paying full price for fuel in a car that does 40 miles per gallon i'm doing 70 and paying half price so um you might be able to hear the 0.7 liter engine behind me as you can see it accelerates absolutely fine there's the speed limit um it's a three cylinder tiny little motor behind um which has got plenty of go in my book um i don't think i need anything more it's not too noisy in here we do have the convertible roof which doesn't help sound deadly but actually it's yeah so comfortable to sit in as well you've got plenty of space lots of visibility all around you what more could you want in a car i'd say um so this one is so early that doesn't actually have power steering so the steering is extremely responsive um which just makes the whole thing the downside for fun it literally feels like a go-kart we've got a semi-automatic single clutch gearbox that is also automatic if that makes sense i know it doesn't um so when we put our foot down i'll show you guys now i'll put my foot down and we'll get it to change oh this is a foot down but we'll get to change gear there we go pause and there we go again so there's a bit of a delay um so it takes some getting used to but it is quite funny um let's go over this it doesn't do bumps very well the smart doesn't do potholes um and the gearbox has a mind of its own um apparently the windscreen washers don't work so uh we're driving into the sun a bit but that's okay isn't it um what's the worst that could happen and as you can see it's just a very very fun pleasant little car to drive now i've done motorway journey in this car i drove it 120 miles from birmingham where he bought it central birmingham possibly one of the dodgiest car dealers i've ever been to and um i wouldn't have got caught under that tractor's wheel would i that could be very painful that that wheel was actually bigger than the car i don't know if you guys saw that um so i drove it home on the motorway has quite happily cruising around 70 miles an hour down the m5 m50 good as gold didn't use any fuel it seems um used about six pounds of fuel to do 150 miles that's what i've done last few days so uh yeah cost saving is already coming and it's yeah as you can see it's just it is what it is um there's so much space in this thing i can't well you can see how far i can reach i'm six foot two probably don't have the longest arms but it's it's hilarious it just is hilarious around town as you can see where it's perfectly suited um it's quite nippy as well um but we'll take you out on some more open roads because i think that's where this

Excerpt

youtube.com/drivelife/the_first_drive_in_our_cheap_smart_car_it_s_hilarious · p. 2 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

i was most surprised by this car um it's just so fun we've got a rev counter there a clock as well there we've got heated seats on this car air conditioning we've got our standard smart radio um which is quite a nice touch and you'll see there the car did a hit automatic hill hold as well which was good so all you do is you put your foot on the brake once you get blinded here and it will hold you until you go off again i feel like mercedes really because this obviously is built by mercedes so um yeah i don't know how much the sun's gonna play a factor of what you guys can actually see but it's just yeah a brilliant brilliant little car i don't know how many times i could say this parking it is an absolute breeze and you could actually park nose in on a parallel parking bay where as most cars out they're designed to be parked in a in a space like that um so for us at home it's perfect because we can just park it anywhere really um as you saw just then potholes aren't the kindest thing for this car as i previously mentioned and that's why um you feel like you've had your spine shattered to be honest probably it's a butthole but um because it's so narrow look this is i can swerve all the way like that in my leg and um i've still got plenty of space so i can swerve around potholes without putting anybody in danger um which is always good don't don't really want people in danger but um yeah we'll tip it into this corner here it leans over but grips well and there we go we're out of the corner let the gearbox decide what it's going to do there we go and we're going to come out on some more open roads now we're going to have some fun taking it through beds because that's honestly where this car is the best um in where it was the last place it was designed for fast flowing a road bends uh quite happily hold the speed limit it will handle like an absolute champ because it's only 700 kilos and we've got no power steering so it's really responsive and we're just gonna cruise along out of this 30 zone past the running club i hope i've burst the tire into those potholes i don't think i have i'd definitely feel it if i had through the day power steering um but in terms of running costs this thing will do 70 miles per gallon it costs us 20 pounds a year to tax 160 pounds for me and mrs dl to drive because you're sure um and it's just an absolute little hoot as you can see so we're sort of going to do it on the basis of whoever does the most miles in a day will take the car so if i drive my my usual commute's about 40 miles to work so if mrs deal's going to do less than that or she isn't really leaving the house much um that day we'll i'll take this she'll have the volvo jeep will be sort of for fun drives weekend drives and off-roading adventures really just to keep mars off it and save us a ton on the fuel bill so there's 50 and we bring it into the bed here a bit of bouncing and there's 60 just like that that wasn't even down too far uh biggest little three cylinder throttle like a bike engine um actually my dad's harley this has got an engine twice the size of this car so that gives you an idea of how what sort of engine you're working with there so it's like it's quite nice having an analog clock that's a nice little addition to the car actually we'll go i don't know it can go straight on uh it does a little wobble i don't know if you saw that when you brake harder you need to look at the brake system on that but what's awesome is you can have fun on roads like this and know that it's not really costing you anything um it really is a car that you can drive full help on british road to not be arrested it's got a slightly staggered setup front and back so front tires are narrower than the rear tyres which means you're not careful you take a bit too much gusto into a bent

Excerpt

youtube.com/drivelife/the_first_drive_in_our_cheap_smart_car_it_s_hilarious · p. 3 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

it will understeer like a pig which is hilarious so it really teaches you a lot about weight balance and getting the weight right before a corner which i think a lot of cars do for you nowadays and actually if everyone drove one of these before um or when they were learning to drive but i think there would probably be a lot better drivers on the uk roads it's just an opinion of course but one that's probably right so there we go as you can see it's just just charges along hopefully the road that i want to go isn't shut but guarantee is so there's these on the brakes put the weight onto the front left-hand wheel and just edge through the corner and it's absolutely fine there's certainly no risk of oversteering this thing the other way it's set up which i think is good soon the size of the real base um in our roads shut no i don't think so the thing might look twice and we're all good i think and look look at the turning circle we can just go round and round this up this roundabout uh no issues whatsoever it's a random roundabout in the middle of the countryside so i'm not holding it all up and just like that we're off again so you can put our foot down where's that speedo go i've got it in manual mode now and it absolutely flies in manual mode or i can have it in auto mode which is now in and now we'll just have a bit of fun through these bends doesn't it sound brilliant as well now a lot of people worry about the safety of these cars but these actually had a five-star safety rating they're better than a lot of land rovers um and other suvs at the time and it's because they've got a steel cage basically which doesn't deform no matter how hard you smash it which is here and it gives that smart car that traditional silver stripe down the side of it that's the steel cage and the rest of the body work is plastic which means that you can change the color of your smart car without having to change the whole color of the car you just buy the panels and actually the panels are really cheap we found an entire set of pink smart car panels 600 pounds which is far cheaper than a wrap or a respray and i just wonder why these sort of cars didn't take off more because actually everybody had enough money to buy a second car you wouldn't buy anything other than this this is brilliant um if you live in a city why would you buy anything else than this and then the early 2000s these cars did fantastically they were selling 200 000 cars a year and then in 2018 they were down just 14 000 and people say that they reckon that they've actually they'll lose mercedes uh 500 million a year smart brand um but the way it sells now which i think is an absolute shame because they're just brilliant little cars and people have this obsession with driving bigger cars because they think it's safer but actually yeah that was good wasn't it but see any other car that would have been a crash but in this car pothole um it would be absolutely fine he didn't actually see me i think because i was so small so i'm gonna drive my headlights up now uh because the headlights on this are really bright uh far brighter than they should be on a car this size that's for sure it's not having two suns on the front uh so we've got a sharp bend here so just tip it in the bend steer let it grip let it change gear there we go and uh yeah it's the most fun i've had driving for a very long time um i've it's probably almost more fun than my mx-5 that i had it's just yeah just an absolute laugh i drove a caterham and it feels similar let's get you know i think i'm talking rubbish now but actually it feels similar to drive to the caterer it's just that sort of responsive lightweight and that is the key to a good driver's car you can uh try and add all sorts of systems and trickery you can do all you want with the suspension but if the car isn't light or responsive then there's no point trying um you can't get around that fact so there's 50 there's 60 and it doesn't feel

Excerpt

youtube.com/drivelife/the_first_drive_in_our_cheap_smart_car_it_s_hilarious · p. 4 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

slow at all i i'm not convinced that this car hasn't had some sort of remap or something because it just it's got no right to accelerate and be as fun as it is as it is it's not a brabus or anything like that but it feels like it should be but i don't think if this is standard what the problem is the right laugh to drive but uh i'll just have a way to pick mrs deal up from work uh i've just done the weekly shock he's all in the back here behind me i've probably doubled the way to the car and uh yeah as you can see on a lovely summer's evil spring evening what better car if only the roof worked we'd be having yeah wind in the hair you can just imagine it's not quite sean connery um going through the ouch but it's pretty close i probably have more fun and i'll be closer to my lady so what more could you want really and yeah you just you've got just fitting spaces you've got no right to fit in i just i just went to the local lpg station um and they've blocked it off with concrete barriers that they do every night to stop people going and stealing the lpg obviously but i just drove around them uh i fitted through the gap and there we were obviously i didn't steal any lpg i just went ahead and look at what the price was um as if they're still selling it because the thing is about lpg nowadays is that it's falling out favor favor a lot of people um it leaves a real shame because a lot of people nowadays with the price of fuel are probably wishing they'd worked a bit harder or honey or a few more people have adopted it so that uh it'll be more readily available but uh i'm gonna end this video here so uh thanks for watching don't forget to like comment and subscribe let me know your thoughts in the comment box below what your thoughts of the smart are am i about to die or is it a sensible buy let me know and i will see you in the next video cheers