Originally I had planned to go to “Smartcars” when needed, but unfortunately they are 30-40 minutes away, each way. And the last time I tried to get in contact with them, by mail, they never replied.
By chance I saw that “Sørby Autocenter” is on the list over companies where smartclubdenmark members get a discount.
They are located quite close to my workplace, so I can drop it of on my way there.
Now a 10% discount isn’t the most important thing, as a “creative” garage owner easily can add extra minutes to any discounted bill, to make up for his missing 10%. So a 10% discount on labour demands a high degree of trust.
What IS important is that the garage knows a bit about Smart cars.
If an inexperienced mechanic has to find the source of an error, he can easily use more than double the time of an experienced mechanic, that knows the issues that plague the specific model.
And if a mechanic fails to see, what specialist thinks is obvious, the 10% discount ends up like a band-aid on a broken limb.
My Smart Fortwo Cabrio has been standing still for some time before I bought it, so I’d like to give it a some fresh oil and a new filter.
However the foreman at Sørby Autocenter sounded like he had some knowledge about Smart’s, so I thought I’d give them a try.
The engine lamp had turned on the other day, but after a restart it was off again. However it lit up again the day before it’s service, and didn’t turn off. On the way to Sørby it was on during the whole trip.
The foreman handed over the keys to their free customer rental car. A pretty new Citroen C1 with only 7.000 kilometres on the odometer.
“It’s only a small car” he said when I was about to leave. I didn’t agree as it’s a big barge with an extra row of seats, compared to the Smart Fortwo 😉
Sørby called back rather quickly.
According to the mechanic, the error message said that there was a defective Lambda sensor. Not the cheapest spare part, but it could have been far worse.
They had reset the error message, but it had reappeared as soon as they started the engine again.
Unfortunately they couldn’t get a new Lambda sensor before the day after, so I’ll be driving the Citroen C1 a day extra.
After changing the Lambda sensor, oil and filters it was ready to roll again.
Sørby Autocenter had even given it an extra thorough wipe down, to remove any mineral oil residue, after hearing that I was allergic.
Update:
Unfortunately, the engine light came on again two days after the visit.
To be fair to Sørby Autocenter; I have not been back to them, to let them have a second look at the car, and this is by no way a criticism of their work.
I have not seen the error messages present before my visit, and I didn’t see the faulty lambda sensor.
I have read out the new error messages, and dived into the smart forums, and I must admit, there is a possibility that the lambda sensor error was a symptom, and not the cause. I’ll update this update, when I have checked up on this.
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