You'd think the Dr visit would be the lead

[bill_schubert]

But no.  Having completed our morning walk I started my Smart Car and put it in reverse and it stayed in neutral.  All kinds of permutations of the transmission later changed nothing.  The car was nose down on an incline and no reverse.  And I had an hour or so before my Dr appointment.  The only thing on my schedule this week.

Zoe and I hoofed it back home.  Only another mile and a half or so.  It was OK w/ me but Zoe was not thrilled and was moving very slowly by the time we got here.  I took Dana's car to the Dr.  Now I'm back home and no idea what to do w/ the Smart.  She's got appointments so I'm walking back to the car if I figure out what to do with it.  I'm leery about most auto places and Mercedes does not have any appointments ever for a Smart transmission.  There is a Smart specialist down south of us in Austin but I called them and left a reply number but they have not called back so I'm not so sure about them.  I put a request out on Smart Reddit but no response yet.

Oh, yeah, the shoulder thing.  As expected he said the shoulder was full of arthritis and something or other 'floating' around.  Wonderful.  I'm a good candidate for more titanium.  

I think that I'm going to wait for a month or so and watch the Covid figures.  They are peaking right now so maybe two months out would be the lull.  But the shoulder is keeping me up at night (criteria number one to do something) and I'm taking lots of Tylenol (criteria number two) and it is getting slowly worse (that's a threefer).   Maybe October will be good.  He wants to take an MRI first which I fully support (other than the fact that I can't handle being in a tube #gooddrugs).

So, a busy day that isn't near over.  

Comments

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Called AAMCO and he said that the transmission was similar to a Nissan and at least knew what a SmartCar was. Encouraging. Now I just need to find a couple of people to help me push it back so I can drive it. And then abandon it to them.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

The internet is full of user comments and discussion about smart cars staying in neutral. I have no idea if any of it will be helpful to you, but apparently it is a known problem. It sounds very frustrating! Good luck with it.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Oh, you need to take several stars for that one.

I'm an idiot for not Googling it. KNOWN issue (https://www.smartcarofamerica.com/threads/wont-go-into-reverse-sometimes.33556/) is right! I called Mercedes and although you can no longer schedule online they still do work on Smart Cars so I'm scheduled to bring it in on Saturday. Sounds like an office visit rather than general anesthetic.

Thank you for the help.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

Oh good! I'm so glad!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I had that happen a few times in my last Smart but thankfully it always woke up again if I restarted it

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

For the moment I'm just carefully parking where I can go forward. Not so difficult. Hopefully will be fixed this weekend.