Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik of Pawlik Automotive
in Vancouver; Vancouver’s best auto service experience.
How’re you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well this morning.
Mark: So we’re talking about a Smart Car, something we’ve not really talked about
before, a 2006 Smart Car, was this a diesel?
What were you working on with this vehicle?
Bernie: This was a diesel, yeah, turbo diesel, sorry Mark.
Mark: Rarer version of this car?
Bernie: Well they most of the Smart Cars for the earlier versions, well they’re all sold
in Canada, I believe they’re selling now in the US but for many years they were only
sold in Canada so the earlier versions were diesels and then they started selling gas
and I think they’ve gone back to diesel.
I’m not sure on the newer models but all the older ones are diesel.
Mark: So what was happening on this car?
Bernie: Well this car came in with a couple issues, it had an oil leak, an engine oil
leak, also had a check engine light on and the vehicle has been inspected at Mercedes,
they’re diagnosed and the owner was told it needed EGR valve or and also a turbo intercooler
so we did an inspection of the vehicle and verified that those in fact were the two issues
that the EGR valve was stuck and full of carbon deposits which they typically do and the EGR
cooler, sorry the EGR intercooler, losing my words here, the turbo intercooler was leaking
oil.
Mark: So what did you notice with the car when you serviced it?
Bernie: Well basically those two items; there was oil dripping from it, from the vehicle
and during our testing we were able to verify that the EGR valve in fact was not functioning.
On further inspection we actually found that the valve was stuck so not repairable, not
just due to excess carbon deposit but the actual valve itself had gone bad.
Mark: So this seems like it could be a little quite a bit of work on this vehicle, was it?
Bernie: It is a fair bit of work, quite, quite a few hours’ work to remove, there’s a
lot to remove on these cars, and typically the engines are tucked into the back, very
compactly.
The bumper needs to be removed a lot of suspension components need to come off so you can get
access to the, to the various parts; so a lot of labour just to get in there and get
going on it.
Unfortunately in these vehicles everything is just, it’s compact and everything’s
put, put in very tightly but, yeah a fair bit of work but certainly reasonably straight
forward once you get everything apart.
I’m going to share a few photos, there’s our Smart car and there’s the EGR valve,
so this is the old EGR valve where my mouse pointer, this is the electronic solenoid actuator
section of the EGR valve and the actual flap is in this area here, so this piece was basically
the motor was stuck internally so that’s why this piece needed to be replaced and then
we have a look at the EGR cooler and there’s the old EGR cooler.
You can see this is a Mark: Turbo intercooler, you mean, right?
Bernie: Sorry Mark?
Mark: Turbo intercooler?
Bernie: Turbo intercooler, I don’t know why I kept calling it an EGR cooler, we do
so many EGR coolers, it’s the Turbo intercooler, thank you.
This is, you can see a lot of fresh oil around this area here and then of course a lot of
just dry, dried-up old dirty oil over here, so this part has been leaking for quite some
time but it just got substantially worse over a period of time.
So I believe I should be back, yes I am.
Mark: So what’s your overall impression of Smart Cars?
Bernie: Well, they’re not my favourites.
I find their kind of tiny, you know, they’re a little small but if you want a small economical
car, they’re pretty awesome.
There’s a lot that does go wrong with these vehicles and they’re kind of finicky over
time, you know things like the ignition, we’ve had issues with the ignition keys that don’t
work.
The transmission on these vehicles, it’s a manual, it’s an automatic manual transmission
so things do go wrong with those, turbochargers, you know they’re not, you know, I look at
different when we’ve worked on some that have quite high kilometers and seem to be
pretty good but they’re a little bit hit and miss, they are a lot of things that do
go wrong along the way and I think sometimes if you get lucky and take care of the car
you can get a lot of kilometers out of it but there are a lot where you don’t get
so much and they tend to end up with a lot of problems so you may end up spending a lot
of that fuel savings on repairs; you know, unless you really want something small and
easy to park and super economical there’s probably some better options out there but
you know many people like them.
Mark: So there you go.
If you are looking for service for your Smart Car in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik
Automotive.
You can reach them at 604-327-7112, to book an appointment or check out their website
pawlikautomotive.com.
Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you Mark.