Photo: original photo by autoevolution
It's been barely a month since the Daimler-owned brand announced the third-gen fortwo. However, the outgoing smart fortwo microcar has its fair share of issues in Asia, where roughly 50,000 vehicles have been recalled by the German automaker.
Introduced in 1998, marketed in 42 countries around the world and with total production well over the 1.6 million mark, the smart fortwo was an outlandish design when it was launched. Take, for example, the small dimensions of the thing, the peppy rear mounted three-pot petrol and diesel mills and the six-speed semi-automatic gearbox that drove most of us mad in stop & start, gridlock traffic.
According to a recent announcent from Daimler AG, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine obliged the manufacturer to call back about 50,000 of these cars for a pretty familiar fault. In Europe, it's pretty common for authorized dealership service departments to work on belt alignment vibrations that can snap the V-belt of the fortwo on every scheduled maintenance visit, but the Chinese government forced the manufacturer to voluntarily recall those 50k vehicles before the belt snaps, damaging the car's internals.
The automaker's internal investigations found out that not a single customer has been injured by this potential issue and there were no instances of severe engine damage situations on the previously mentioned population of fortwos. Daimler AG tells that the recall operation is scheduled to commence on August 22nd, with some 4,000 more vehicles recalled in Japan for the same V-belt vibrations defect.
According to a recent announcent from Daimler AG, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine obliged the manufacturer to call back about 50,000 of these cars for a pretty familiar fault. In Europe, it's pretty common for authorized dealership service departments to work on belt alignment vibrations that can snap the V-belt of the fortwo on every scheduled maintenance visit, but the Chinese government forced the manufacturer to voluntarily recall those 50k vehicles before the belt snaps, damaging the car's internals.
The automaker's internal investigations found out that not a single customer has been injured by this potential issue and there were no instances of severe engine damage situations on the previously mentioned population of fortwos. Daimler AG tells that the recall operation is scheduled to commence on August 22nd, with some 4,000 more vehicles recalled in Japan for the same V-belt vibrations defect.
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