Thanks.
We are having a great time with this little guy

Check your spelling on your 'DRIVING" blog

hopefully, that is the fix, but I now drift backwards and the car never handled worse when these kinds of things are disabled. It really sucks to not have ABS, ESC, Hill Assist, and all the fancy stuff that smoothed out the ride. Many people say that it could be the reluctor; a pin or so is not correct and may need to be replaced according to Smart Car of America. We shall see on a couple of days and I will get back to you and others on my blog, or post it here like I am doing now :-)
Sincerely,
Brett Harrison

they had to order all of the parts From France, but they repainted the tridion cell. It looks good, but now my ABS light and ESC light are on, which when they go on, disables the electric braking system controls and stuff. Well, back to the shop. Hopefully, not for a too long of a time!

Ah, OK. That is old school manual mode in an automatic gearbox. 1 is 1st gear, 2 is 2nd, etc. Exact behavior varies by gearbox maker. Usually the number is one less than the number of gears in the gearbox.

As far as the upside down car, I am a rally co-driver (now retired from competition) and that was from my wreck at the 2006 Prescott Rally. It was an 80 mph entry and my driver made a mistake (didn't take into account the lack of traction caused by some crests), so we went straight into a ditch and rolled.

what does the 1,2, and 3 after the D do in your car?

Are you talking about my smart? In the US smart, there is just P, R, N, D and next to D is +/-. The shift lever moves forward and back through P, R, N and D. The shift lever moves side-to-side between +/- and D. Functionally, it is just like automatic transmission with a manual gear selection mode (like Tiptronic).

When the shift lever is on D, D is shown on the display under the speedo, no matter what gear the gearbox has selected. When the shift lever is on +/-, the current gear (1-5) is shown on the display. Also, if the gearbox thinks that you should be in a higher gear, it will display an up arrow.

Nick, There is a hill holder function on the Smarts, so at lights you don't drift back for five seconds. As far as acceleration on Seattle hills... first or second gear works okay and if you can get enough speed up, you can go to third. I live at the top of a steep hill and at times can scoot up in second with a running start.

The reservation system opened in mid-March. I saw a story on reservations in June and signed up. I didn't know that it had been open for three months when I signed up.

The Seattle dealership has delivered around 600 cars (I think that is the number ...), so I wasn't quite on the ground floor.

Hey Nick, I waited for the car that I ordered. Remember that this is Seattle, which has a high demand and low dealer count.

My sister found out about the US smart from me last October and got on an orphan list in Jacksonville, FL (I think - that would be the nearest dealer for her) at the beginning of the year and got her car in the spring.