.i would love a smart to get to work and back.i own a geo metro 3 cylinder 1 liter.i am only getting about 37 mpg right now..i love small non-american cars..always have.it has a jap motor..i've also had a 1976 honda civic..2 bugs..fiat 128..etc..love em all.as gas in america keeps going up i am loving my car more.

In Canada, Smarts seem to be purchased either as novelties (lots of them are adorned with business logos or are used in displays etc.) or because they are 'hip', in the same vein as the New Beetle or Mini. I doubt there will be much difference when it is sold in the US.

I agree! loads are seen in Britain and are all over the place in Europe. Shure, they are OK for a large metropolis and as a city car in somewhere like Holland, where there are too many cars, but they are really aimed at the tight-wallet, dope-smoking, sandal-wearing hippie or student. In Britain, they are painted in bizzare colours, or made to look like a pig or even a zebra for a company. America has never had a problem with space, or in most cases, fuel. I'd hate to still see these awful 'eco' cars on the roads in the future.

@antp: Mercedes has a good reputation indeed, but it can happen, that they are producing junk, even in Germany. A colleague had a brand new C-Klasse, which was broken for electrical reasons more than a dozen times in 4 months.

And a friend from Northern France has told me, that just a few years ago there was a man (around Lille, I think), who had worst problems with his E-Klasse. He also get in trouble with his Mercedes-garage, si at least he was so pissed, that he has stored his car on the biggest parking of a shopping mall, badged over and over with stickers of all defects he had (and with copies of the letters).
It was a big discussion - but finally Mercedes France gave him a new car.


Such actions can be impressive for a long long time, even with bad results for the company.
So in Germany all people, who still know the Matra Simca Bagheera from the 70ies, know also a similar story.
In 1974/75 one man in Berlin had problems over and over with his Bagheera, also angry arguments with Simca Germany. He also covered his car with stickers and copied letters and has placed it directly in the middle of Berlin, in front of the "Gedächtniskirche" at the Kurfürstendamm.
This scene was printed in a plenty of newspapers and car-magazines in 1975.

And finally it has really destroyed the (even not really high before) reputation of Chrysler Simca in Germany.
The selling of the Bagheera was broken down, also the successor Murena wasn't sold well, because this story was still in the mind of the people.

If I did not need to work every day, I would not need to drive every day



Mine does about 30 MPG in city/mixed use, which is considered as "normal" for a gas car



European VW or US VW ? As your VW are built in Mexico rather than Europe, I guess that they do not use same components or maybe do not have same quality.
About Mercedes, they indeed had problems on some models. But again not all Mercedes are made in Europe.

There ya' go, that's the kind of attitude that's going to stop global warming
Unfortunatly only a select few share that thinking over here

By the way, I once saw a TV program about car culture back when the smart was just being introduced to the market, the presenter showed it to a load of boy-racer types and they all laughed at it. Today the smart isn't quite as much of a laughing stock, but you couldn't expect to pull any girls with it!

"Do you even have the whole "status symbol" thing in Europe?"

Of course we do. Ever heard of Rolls-Royce? European societies aren't that dissimilar to American society, we're not communists. The British consumer behaves in more-or-less the same way the American consumer behaves, it's a question of how much money he/she has and what he/she wants.

Mercedes and Volkswagen make some of the highest quality, most durable cars in the world (for example the Merc S-Class is miles ahead of any American luxury car), but sometimes some models experience problems and score low in owner surveys, it's happened to every big car company.

I don't actually have a car of my own right now, I borrow my dad's car, I don't need to drive every day. I used to own an early model Renault Clio.

The smart car has been available in Canada for several years now, and they sell pretty well. They will probably be popular in larger cities like New York and Boston, but I can't really see them being popular in states like Texas though.

20 MPG considered bad? That sounds so strange to me.

As for the Metro, it just seems like the "standard" when it comes to econboxes. No one wants to be seen in them (although there are quite a few out there) Do you even have the whole "status symbol" thing in Europe? I mean do people buy a car because they "want to look good"? It seems like they just buy them for purely practical reasons like cargo space and fuel economy.
As for European quality, I've seen some absolutely atrocious reliability reports for Volkswagen and Mercedes in the last few years
I'm not judging your cars, it just what I've read. And I know reliability is not the only aspect of "quality"
By the way, what car do you have? I apologize if it's a Geo Metro