2010 SMART CAR CLUTCH REPLACMENT
Mark: Hi, it's Mark. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. Vancouver's best auto service experience, period. And we're talking cars. How you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well today.
Mark: Today's guest is a 2010 smart car. What was happening with this vehicle?
Bernie: So the vehicle was towed to our shop. The owner wasn't able to shift gears on the vehicle. Like it wouldn't go into gear. So it was clearly a problem with the clutch or transmission. And we proceeded to diagnose that concern.
Mark: Gas, diesel or electric? Obviously we can eliminate electric. So gas or diesel?
Bernie: It was gas. Yeah.
Mark: Let's jump right to pictures here.
Bernie: Yeah.
Mark: So here's our strange looking little car.
2010 SMART CAR TOWED TO OUR SHOP ... CAR WOULDN'T SHIFT GEARS
Bernie: I always find them amusing to look at, even though we work on tons of 'em. They're just. Cute little things.
DIAGNOSIS - SMART CAR CLUTCH ACTUATOR WASN'T OPERATING PROPERLY
Mark: The diagnosis went how?
Bernie: So there was some codes stored in the computer for clutch actuator issues. So we determined the actuator wasn't operating properly, got a new one, put it in. There's some alignment procedures that need to be done. If you can just move up a couple of pictures.
So you can see there's a couple of slots there near the top of the actuator unit. You can slide this actuator around and bolt it in a certain way. So there's a certain position that needs to be bolted in, and then from there you can electronically actuate the clutch and set it up. Initialize the clutch actuator. Perform that, and it wouldn't do the procedure. So there's another issue.
Next step, we proceeded to test the electronics, make sure that we weren't missing anything, that there wasn't a broken wire. Tested the power to the module, which is located under the driver's seat. Everything seemed to be fine. So we figured, okay, maybe there's a problem in the actual clutch itself. The actuator was bad, but something had caused it to get damaged.
SMART CAR ACTUATOR MODULE WAS BAD
So we looked at the clutch with an inspection camera. The clutch is all hidden, but we're able to see that the clutch release fork, some of the fingers weren't in the right spot. Figured, you know what? This thing's worn out. We gotta replace that. Pulled the clutch out and found some neat stuff. So there's the clutch disc. Not entirely worn out but worn pretty badly.
SMART CAR CLUTCH DISC ALMOST TOTALLY WORN OUT
Mark: Pretty close.
Bernie: Yeah. You can see there's, yeah, you're moving the mouse over, you can see the rivets. They're almost touching the fibrous material and those lines that are going across, some of 'em are missing. That material's actually worn out, so it's worn pretty badly.
Next picture, we found some issues here too. This is the clutch release bearing. So when that actuator. Is actuated, it actually pushes this bearing against the clutch and the red is pointing to the collar where that bearing slides, you can see it's very rusty and not seized, but it wouldn't move very well. And the yellow is pointing to the clutch release bearing, and when you spin that bearing, it was very noisy, so the bearing was worn out as well.
SMART CAR CLUTCH RELEASE BEARING RUSTY AND WORN OUT
Mark: It should look like this.
SMART CAR ... NEW CLUTCH RELEASE BEARING
Bernie: Should look like that. That's a new one. You can see there's a bit of grease on there. It's nice and shiny, so everything moves really well.
Other things we replace when we do the clutch, we grind the flywheel. And that is the ground flywheel. So the idea of grinding is to make it absolutely perfectly flat. So it's a good surface for the clutch disc to work against.
SMART CAR ... NEXT WE GRIND DOWN THE FLYWHEEL TO MAKE IT PERFECTLY FLAT
There's the new clutch installed.
SMART CAR ... NEW CLUTCH INSTALLED
Mark: Lovely looking forks to make it shift properly.
Bernie: Yeah, those are the fingers. You can see that's where the release bearing rides. It's important that's all in good condition. At 2010, the car's at this point, 16 years old, so it's had a lot of years of use, 150,000 kilometres which is a fair amount for a smart car.
Mark: That's a lot of driving in town basically.
Bernie: Yes it is.
Mark: And how did everything work after? Fairly extensive repair.
Bernie: Yeah. A fairly extensive repair for sure. And pretty costly. Unfortunately for the client, you take one step and you do one thing that you know you need to do, and then sometimes it leads to a second one. We set everything up, reinitialized it, it all worked properly.
Mark: And you work on quite a few of these. How durable are smart cars?
Bernie: They're not bad. This car's 16 years old at this point, pretty good. Other than this seems to be pretty good. So they're not bad. They last longer than you'd think they would for a little car.[
Mark: So there you go. If you're looking for service for your smart car, it doesn't matter what brand or make, whatever's powering it. The experts to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can check out our many videos about smart car repairs. We've got close to a thousand videos on there, not all about the smart car. Or you can call them at (604) 327-7112. They'll answer the phone. They'll talk to you. They'll find out what's going on. They'll get ready for your appointment. You have to book ahead with Pawlik. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark. Thanks for watching.
