Hi there
I have just upgraded my 3 year old Smart to an all Black Passion.
One of the selling points was the inbuilt SatNav.
I will not have to put up with the TomTom falling off the screen or the trailing power cable.
I have also got spoilt by the OM's inbuilt Kenwood unit in his LandRover.
I specifically asked the sales rep does it accept full UK post code and he said yes.
When I went to collect the car neither I nor the sales rep could enter the post code or rather the full post code and further I could not put in my road name!
Obviously I got home but it seems the maps are 2011/2012 yet the postal data base is lagging far behind.

The OM had a good look at it and also discovered that TMC would not work.
TMC is a traffic warning system piggy backed on Classic FM's RDS and will re route you if there is a hold up.
This works very well on the TomTom that is now 4 years old.
Selecting TMC it just says it is not available?
I have contacted Smart who have asked me to bring the car in.
It might be that I will need to subscribe to TMC but Smart seem to have no knowledge of this , and why should I have to when purchasing a brand new Smart.
Talking to them however has not inspired confidence that they know what to do to fix it.
They told me no one else has ever complained of this.
They were silent when I asked them how I get to an address that is not recognised by this unit.
Right now I am VERY unhappy with this unit and consider it not fit for purpose.

Is this the only unit fitted in to the 2012 Smart.
Has it be resolved?
I am awaiting a call from Smart after they have had some time to investigate this further rather than waste my time on a 60 mile round trip for nought.
If it cannot be fixed to my satisfaction what are my rights and what can I do?

Thanks in advance

Linda

Hi Linda

The sales guy has told your rubbish, the sat nav does not have full UK postal code input, rather you place part of it by switching between abc and 123 inputs, once you have done that, you can either select the street name or start typing that also, however its quite outdated, it will not show my street and its been here 5 years :-(

TMC! hmm, there are many threads on that, but here basically what the problem is according to Smart, the unit is built by bosche or however its spelt and they made a generic one for europe, here in the UK TMC works differently from the rest of Europe, so sadly its not a case of just paying for a subscription. I have spoken with the CEO of Smart a couple of times, and they say they have no issue paying for the licence, but Bosche have told them that if they enable TMC on the UK model Smarts it will crash the unit and they will not cover it under warranty!

Also, Smart will not change the high line unit to another model as it has not been approved by smart, so basically its that way and doesn't seem like its gonna change, pretty crap if you ask me!

If you chose to you could I guess go down the route of not fit for purpose, but good luck with that, unless you can prove the unit is advertised somewhere in the UK with full postcode input and TMC functions I doubt you would get anywhere, however the manual does mention TMC but doesn't state anything about the UK (again, another generic europe thing)

I guess the only thing you could attempt is get the dealer to remove the high line unit and install the lowline one and refund you the cost of the high line and then purchase your own double din unit and install it yourself, however I think the cost would be more than what you would get back from the high line though, so if you can handle the little things not working, it might be worth it? Personally I still use my TomTom even with the high line unit as I like to know if there are going to be any delays on my route.

So taking your car back in to have it looked at will not solve anything, what you can do, is write a strongly worded letter to the CEO of Smart (not their customer services dept, loL)

Apart from that, how are you enjoying your Smartie?

Hmmmmm
Thanks for the reply DB
The OM double checked his SatNav this morning and our complete estate is shown etc..
I know his is Garmin based.
I did not even realise Bosch made SatNavs.
Thought they were power tools
Also I wonder whom supplies the mapping info to Bosch!
Regarding TMC OM thought this was the same generic system used in UK and Germany, as there was a Pan European agreement on the standard supplied through INRIX, but he will check with an ex work colleague that used to sit on the RDS Forum group to get more info on this.

Re the Smart it is my second and is a fun little car but sometimes I get frustrated by the lack of boot space regardless of a claim by smart I recall a few years ago about fitting a washing machine in the boot ha ha.
I changed it to another because of this new SatNav, so to be honest I know its only a minor problem but it has annoyed me that following Smarts courtesy call I gave them a 10.
It was the very next day and before I realised what a useless SatNav was fitted.

I am waiting to hear from Smart on how they are going to resolve this.

Watch this space I will let you know outcome

I also thought Bosch was a house hold appliance company, lol

I also left Smart previously but have worked my way back to them lol

I too was on the thought that TMC was standard, yet they seem to think otherwise, lol they managed to get TMC working in their 10' plate cars, but then they changed to the new high line which to be honest is very good, apart from the fact we can't have all the parts of it working.

It will be interesting to see what your dealer has to say about it, and how they will fix the problem

Please keep us posted.

HI LindyLou

Any news on your satnav?

Hope all is well.

Daniel.

Hi Daniel the sound of silence is deafening
I will email them again in the morning but not expecting much !!
Its been a couple of weeks now and it has been long enough.
Tried a few times to go places with this antiquated 5 digit system and failed and so I keep my old TomTom in the glovebox.
It is VERY disappointing as the new Sat Nav helped sell me the car.

On another subject does any one else think the hazard switch is in a silly place.
The OM puts in CDs or changes stations for me whilst I drive and his wrist often brushes the switch setting them off.

The design has not changed sigh .

L

Thats not so great, but sadly its what Im learning to expect of them.

The hazards switch is in a stupid place, I have caught it myself a few times, lol

The Smart has gone in today
I gave them 3 post codes + addresses that fail ie. RH11 7 Spartan Way and RH11 7 Delrogue Road, all of which have been inhabited for over 5 years. = mine

Waiting for their response on those.
The TMC works on Mercedes but not on Smart they tell me.
Well the pioneer unit in the loan car had TMC working !!

The Heater did not work at all from new.
The passenger door closes first time every time but the drivers door often fails to close properly.!
Waiting for a call back soon so will post update
Not impressed at all right now !!

I received a phone call that the heater is fixed but they can do nothing with the 'State of the Art' SatNav/ Multimedia unit.
The dealer recognised and agreed that the post code data base was way out of date and has escalated this to Smart for Tech Support.
They advise me that Smart Units do not support TMC in the UK !!
TMC is meant to be a generic system, that should be work in ANY Country.
Smart have fitted a Bosch Multimedia unit and it is Boschs TMC Receiver design that is at fault.
In my opinion there are two possible solutions.
!/ A firmware upgrade to the Bosch unit, or
2/ Replacement of this equipment that is not suited to the UK Market.

I have telephoned Smart customer support with my views on this equipment and am awaiting their response.
Surely there are many others out there who are as frustrated with Smart as me.

Coincidentally I met another Smart owner with this same equipment fitted.
She had been told it was the best on the market.
She complained of the antiquated post code entry system, and that it had taken them on a wrong route home.
I cannot comment on that but both of us keep our TomTom navigators to take us anywhere not trusting in the Smart unit.

If I get no satisfaction from Smart I might consider referring it to BBC Watchdog and see if they are interested.
I hope others complain to Smart as well.

I got the Smart back from Smart of Portsmouth.
My main concern was the Sat Nav being out dated by 5 years and TMC not working.
No change in that.
The other problem is the heater not working.
They told me they replaced the fan !!
I questioned this but they assured me it was now working.
Guess what still no heat.
Thats £20 in fuel plus a days leave to have NONE of the problems resolved.
Not impressed at all
L

I too have spoken to my dealership and contacted Smart customer service.All to no avail.Especially the indifferent customer service women that took my call.I too cannot believe that a car can be sold witha SAT-NAV which is not fit for purpose.Once again this was a selling point on my New fortwo Passion coupe bought in August 2012.A suggestion that we should contact watchdog is a great idea as this seems to get results.I too carry my TomTom around in the car as it also alerts me to speed cameras which again the Bosch outdated system seems incapable of.Does anyone know if the Bosch unit is updatable and if so HOW !!!!!

LindyLou said...

I hope others complain to Smart as well.

Join the club, there's a longer thread on here, you're not the only one LL, I've given up complaining to them about the "State of the ARK" satnav, as it does no good. Our 2012 passion is in getting fixed for a collision, have waited months now to get car back, when it came to putting new airbag into steering wheel, they said they kept getting alarms, and would need to put a new steering wheel on (that was 2 weeks ago). My suggestion was "why not take a new steering wheel off one of the new Smart cars that you have and put it on mine? Then you can replace the wheel on THAT car when the new one arrives" no reply. edit: It's now a month later and they still haven't sorted my car out, I've started a blog on my profile

Updated December 7, 2012 at 4:37 PM

--

Fiat 500 next time!!

Hi, I bought my smart ex demo.. that sat nav is a useless item full stop.. if you are able to see the very dim screen that reflects like s mirror then your doing better than me.. if its day time you cannot see the screen.. my advice is to have the damn thing removed and replaced by an after market item, you can the sell the smart sat nav on ebay etc for a fair bit of cash.. I saw one up for £800.. I love smarts, have had 3 now in fact own 2 at the moment.. they have come a long way.. but they are so very over priced to have poor equipment installed.. so smart if your reading this.. your radio sucks! and can we please have a gear box that locks to auto or manual instead of auto till you touch the stick!!! oh and whats with the mpg these days gee whiz my land rover was close to this!! otherwise great fun car, I still love it...