Smart car crosswise

[stolpsaddles]

I haul my 2006 smart on the deck but was wondering about the next versions of the smart being 106.1". How do people get by hauling them crosswise when 102" is maximum legal width.

Do they just hope no one notices?

Are you still insured if you have an accident and are over legal width with no permits or signage?

Just wondering as I might have to upgrade if my 2006 get written off after my fall from the truck when a ramp broke.

[HERO Maker]

Can't answer most of the questions you have.  But I too travel with a 2015 model and I'm not worried about it.

I'm more focused on why your ramp broke?  What ramps were you using?  These answers are more important to me!!!

[Big5er]

2 hours ago, stolpsaddles said:

Are you still insured if you have an accident and are over legal width with no permits or signage? 

Every drunk, speeder, and stop sign runner is covered in their accident, why would this be any different? They might drop you after they pay off, but insurance isn't only for "not at fault" accidents.

Just wondering as I might have to upgrade if my 2006 get written off after my fall from the truck when a ramp broke.

What brand of ramp? 

 

[Nigel]

The smarts seem to be pretty tough so I would surprised if it doesn't get repaired.  There is a 2006 "Canada 1" coupe for sale in Abbotsford with about 100,000 km.  It can be found on the clubsmartcar site and is one of four special edition cars if you are interested.  Not my car  I'm on the other side of the country but I think the price is quite reasonable considering what it is.

 

Nigel

 

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

OUCH!

What happened?  If a ramp moved then it's one item, if it failed by bulking then is it an engineering issue, metal fatigue, or ???

[Ronbo]

I am sure the investigating officer isn't going to pull ou a tape and measure the smart unless it is the cause of the accident.

[billr]

Also interested in ramp failure.  

Hauled an 05 then switched to an 11. Yes 106". Worried no. 

[Dennis M]

If a LEO wants to measure it offer to hold one end of the tape for him! 

[Brad & Jacolyn]

Glad you were not injured in the fall but I'm also interested in what happened and what type of ramp.

 

Brad

[alan0043]

1 hour ago, Brad & Jacolyn said:

Glad you were not injured in the fall but I'm also interested in what happened and what type of ramp.

 

Brad

2X on the ramps. It is good that you where not hurt. I think I would be talking to the people that made the ramps to see if they cover the damage to your Smarty.

Al

[runaway parents]

Curious to know  who built  and designed the bed and ramp system lets put the blame where it belongs let the figure pointing begin sure glad nobody got hurt.

[rdickinson]

19 hours ago, Nigel said:

The smarts seem to be pretty tough so I would surprised if it doesn't get repaired.  There is a 2006 "Canada 1" coupe for sale in Abbotsford with about 100,000 km.  It can be found on the clubsmartcar site and is one of four special edition cars if you are interested.  Not my car  I'm on the other side of the country but I think the price is quite reasonable considering what it is.

 

Nigel

 

I packed an '06, now have a '17, I'm not worried

Re the used 05 or 06, I'd recommend against it having had one and being in close contact with mechanics, service as well as parts people.  The generation 1's had birth defects which show up around 85000kms.  If you look at RV America Smart car forums there is a list of dead Smarts.  Not sure of their source but a lot of them are due to engine failure.  At over 4k last count an engine wasn't worth the cost of replacement so they get parted out.  High pressure fuel pumps as well as the oil pump, timing chain assembly were a main culprit.

To replace the rear struts is about 600$  marginally less than my 2008 Dodges front struts at 700$.

Best get a newer gen 2 or 3 Smart, who knows how long parts are going to be available now they are stopping production.

I got rid of my 06 and got the 17 because of repair bills.  Not many locations are able to do repairs on these things so I made sure the symptoms were dealt with before they became problems.

Any doubt contact Three Point Motors in Victoria and talk to Greg the Service writer for the Smarts.

[Dollytrolley]

Bing a ........habitual-criminal for most of my life (time awake) I have considerable experience on the too-wide-side-of-the-law and I'll give you a  little known secret that the road-bears (cops) use to measure how "too-wide" your load is......they just lay back a bit and look at how far your load hangs out compared to your  rear view mirror spans......you can try to blow smoke and use your Kill-0-meter tape calibrated in four-longs  or whatever but your only kidding your self IF you think that you are going to foist something on a guy thats been hiding behind a billboard drinking Dr Pepper all day long........your going to be toast....

Now...Phil has told us time and time again that he is only issued a ticket book with only so many tickets that he can issue so.........do you really think he is going to "waste" a valuable ticket on some "rich-geezers" with shiny VoLv0'z when he can just chug a few more Dr Peppers and throw the ticket book at some "habitual-criminal" like me with a horse hidden in the back of plane-jane-toyhauler........what kinda criminal would take all the back roads with a stealth-horse hauler.......

Should not admit  to this crime but.........once in a while I have been known to haul our Samurai crosswise behind the Trolley condo in the flatbed and it is 120" and just to flaunt my criminal tendencies I leave the spare tire on the back and the tow bar on the front.......now my children at about 135" wide you would think this would lure the fuzz out of hiding but so far no ticket......YET.....

So you wimpy LGC's (Little Girlie Criminals) are so close to clean your just not worth wasting a ticket  on and your sure as heck not worth spilling any Dr Pepper on hot pursuit..........

 

Drive on..........(How W  I  D  E is too......W  I  D  E)

[VegasFlyer]

1 hour ago, Dollytrolley said:

Bing a ........habitual-criminal for most of my life (time awake) I have considerable experience on the too-wide-side-of-the-law and I'll give you a  little known secret that the road-bears (cops) use to measure how "too-wide" your load is......they just lay back a bit and look at how far your load hangs out compared to your  rear view mirror spans......you can try to blow smoke and use your Kill-0-meter tape calibrated in four-longs  or whatever but your only kidding your self IF you think that you are going to foist something on a guy thats been hiding behind a billboard drinking Dr Pepper all day long........your going to be toast....

Now...Phil has told us time and time again that he is only issued a ticket book with only so many tickets that he can issue so.........do you really think he is going to "waste" a valuable ticket on some "rich-geezers" with shiny VoLv0'z when he can just chug a few more Dr Peppers and throw the ticket book at some "habitual-criminal" like me with a horse hidden in the back of plane-jane-toyhauler........what kinda criminal would take all the back roads with a stealth-horse hauler.......

Should not admit  to this crime but.........once in a while I have been known to haul our Samurai crosswise behind the Trolley condo in the flatbed and it is 120" and just to flaunt my criminal tendencies I leave the spare tire on the back and the tow bar on the front.......now my children at about 135" wide you would think this would lure the fuzz out of hiding but so far no ticket......YET.....

So you wimpy LGC's (Little Girlie Criminals) are so close to clean your just not worth wasting a ticket  on and your sure as heck not worth spilling any Dr Pepper on hot pursuit..........

 

Drive on..........(How W  I  D  E is too......W  I  D  E)

Dolly,

When Phil told you that he had a quota, that didn't exactly mean that he could only white so any tickets.....  It meant that your ticket would win him a toaster oven and put him in the drawing for a trip to Hawii......lol

As Phil, Chad and any of the other LEO's. will surely attest to, unless you are stopped as part of a special emphasis enforcement, like seat belts, safety corridor, etc., the person getting stopped stands the best chance by having a decent attitude.  It is kind of hard to cut someone a break when they have an attitude.

You are correct that it does not take a mechanical engineer to figure out when someone is over width.  All a LEO has to do is look at your load in relation to known widths like mirrors, as you said, or an rv trailer or truck frame/bed.  If someone is not grossly over width, the odds of being stopped with the over width being the primary offense, is quite remote.  Not impossible, but remote.

[Brad & Jacolyn]

Hello stolpsaddles,

   Hope all is working out for you. We are all still quite interested in your broken ramp comment. Please let us know what happened and what kind of ramp it was. Did the ramp actually break or was it the mount or just what happened. Several of use carry our Smarts on the truck but I have never heard of a ramp breaking. Just want to be sure there is not something else we should be checking before loading.

 

Brad

[Dollytrolley]

9 hours ago, VegasFlyer said:

Dolly,

When Phil told you that he had a quota, that didn't exactly mean that he could only white so any tickets.....  It meant that your ticket would win him a toaster oven and put him in the drawing for a trip to Hawii......lol

As Phil, Chad and any of the other LEO's. will surely attest to, unless you are stopped as part of a special emphasis enforcement, like seat belts, safety corridor, etc., the person getting stopped stands the best chance by having a decent attitude.  It is kind of hard to cut someone a break when they have an attitude.

You are correct that it does not take a mechanical engineer to figure out when someone is over width.  All a LEO has to do is look at your load in relation to known widths like mirrors, as you said, or an rv trailer or truck frame/bed.  If someone is not grossly over width, the odds of being stopped with the over width being the primary offense, is quite remote.  Not impossible, but remote.

Well John since my last parole officer was checked into the memory loss cop section of the old-cop-retirement home I have lost contact with most cops these days and as you know out here at Last Chance Peak dialing 911 just gets you the recording that the number is mo longer in service.......

 

Pretty sure I am going to loose what ever is left of my security clearance but what the heck here goes with some more criminal history......

 

Once upon a time a young criminal was trying to get into the "will-fly-food-game" but the kid was loosing weight when one News Years Morning the phone rang and it was the local banker called and had need of a pair of Peerless Chip Bins removed from a property BEFORE midnite......gulp.....

 

Obviously when one criminal (banker) calls another criminal (wannabe pilot) early New Years Eve Morning this is going to bust a lot of laws.....oh ya....

 

So I call a millwright buddy and he said well it will cost a lot to move the bins because his crew was already drunk so the bins would to be moved ,,,,,,,,as is without dismantling them..........no problem......we will just rob the banker of a bucket of cash and then pay the holiday-rate to the other junior-perps that we would "enlist" into the crime spree........lets see first like any good crime first things first how much money will we need to rob from the banker......easy.....about 30% of the cost of some used peerless bins with cyclones on top........$12.000.......cash unmarked used bills........Ray (millwright) says it is my job to rob the banker and he would call Earnie (geezer-trucker) and Dick (geezer-crane owner) .......so......I attempted to rob the banker but just like any banker he just turne around and tried to screw me by telling me that he would need to pay me at a later date.........I slammed the phone down and then waited.........15 sec later the banker calls back and I pickup the phone and then slam it back down.......10 sec later phone rings and when I pick up the phone the banker yells OK, OK he will meet me at the bins with $15,000 in a dirty bank bag.........nice banker.....

 

So I meet and rob the banker next I need to enlist the cops in the crime spree so I call my hunting buddy cop Dennis and I tell him about the crime in progress and tell him that I have a bag full of hot cash from the banker a Dennis says........sweet......but of course Bing a rich cop already he needs only a poloroide-photo shot of the bins going down the street and then the rest of the cops will buy him donuts and coffee for a month in envy for managing our crime spree.....so next I call my cusion (Dean) who was the Sr. Lineman at the power company with a equipment yard just down the street from wher the bins were.....Dean was rich but being a geezer he agreed to cut the power lines that would be in the way of our +85ft high load and he would only charge the banker $20 day donation to the little league team that the power company sponsored to store the bins.......sweet.....

Dont ya just love it when ya have a crime come together like a.......crime....

Anyhow Earnie and Dick being OLD Geezers kicked me and Ray in the butt and Dennis (cop) had me drive the Chiefs cop car to the end of the street and park crosswise with the bubblegum light flashing while he sat in his cop car at the end of the street eating donuts and drinking coffee protecting from the ongoing crime of moving the bins.......

Earnie pulled the Freightshaker and a pup trailer under the bins and Dick held tension in the bins with his crane and a huge spreader bar just to keep the bins from tipping over while Ray and me welded I beams across the legs if the bins across the truck and trailer and then cut the lower section of the bin legs off and the bins were setting on the truck and trailer without ever needing to crane pick them........Dick would steady the bins as Earnie creeped foreword and then as the crane ran out of reach Dick would just pick up the outriggers a few inches and then creep the crane foreword and reset the outriggers and so on and so on.......just before dark the bins were parked in the power yard and the banker was smiling.......until Earnie told him that he had just bought his truck and trailer.........I broke out the bag of money and we counted out the ill gotten funds on the hood of the Chiefs car and by then it was time for Earnie and Dick to go home and drink prune juice .........Ray and I blew the rest of the bag of money on a old Cessna 170 so we were poor again just like most low life criminals.......

Not sure this crime could be done these days so I guess we just have to let the online crooks robs us all including the bankers........

 

The best part of the crime spree above is that a year later the banker foreclosed on the slumloard that would not let the bank keep the bins in place so in the bank made out to be the real criminal and made BIG $$$$$$ when they resold the property.........go big or go home......

 

Crime pays........sometimes......better to just be a bank in the end....

 

Drive on........(where did I leave the bag full of......$$$$$)

 

 

 

 

[VegasFlyer]

Well that was a good story, except for one minor detail that would make me want to call BS..... The odds of finding a "rich" cop, are slimmer than finding an honest Democrat.....

Just sayin......lol

[Dollytrolley]

3 hours ago, VegasFlyer said:

Well that was a good story, except for one minor detail that would make me want to call BS..... The odds of finding a "rich" cop, are slimmer than finding an honest Democrat.....

Just sayin......lol

Well John you were close but look carefully and you  will see I put the word RICH before the word Cop ......Dennis always wanted be a cop but he was well off so........ he wormed his way into being the "Community-Relations-Cop" and he was a darn nice guy and even the scumbags liked him so the long hours and silly-low pay did not faze him at all........but by the time he retired he was seeing the hand writing on the wall and these days he would likely not be a cop........but life is good and every year he takes a few of his +$80,000 Rigby 416 express double guns to Africa and takes a $120,000 safari and brings back a Cape and some other "items" so it seems that some cops retire to bigger hobbies that others ..............

 

Dennis says if you want to be a cop it's best bring your own money to the gig before you start.........but as he says...." times are a changing"

 

Drive on..........(Where did I leave my darn........ 416 Rigby....)

[stolpsaddles]

The ramps where from Discount Ramps  

Aluminum Folding Smart Car Trailer Ramps - 2,000 lb per axle Capacity with the plate. I loosely bolt them to the deck.

I chose these ramps instead of the Big Boy II  ramps  because of the higher weight rating. I have used them for four years. When backing off the deck one of the hinges failed, sounded like an explosion. The right rear started to drop so I floored the accelerator and got the car off before it rolled over. The front of the care move left so the left tire missed the ramp on the way down and damaged the front air dam, center panel,left fender, ac rad, main rad and the plastic panel underneath. .I called discount ramps and they offered to sell me 1 or 2 ramps at a discount  because there was only 1 year warranty on those ramps.( the lighter weight ramps had 5 year warranty ). I sent them a followup email with photos of the ramps and asked for them to ship me 2 new ramps at there cost and I would cover the damage to the car. Called back a few days later to find out what they would do and they agreed to ship me 2 new ramps at there cost. Don't know why they failed, maybe I was rough unloading them off the truck, ( throw them on the ground from the deck )

Still don't know the $$$ damage to the car but the insurance is $500 deductible. Lucky no damage to the truck or any injuries. With some duct tape and glue and the car was usable with no AC

 

[HERO Maker]

Thanks for the info,

It would be great if you could post some pictures of the failure point of that ramp.  It would help us all to know what to start looking for.

Glad you're ok.  Thanks for responding.

[Big5er]

Does kinda make me wanna go look at my ramps. Maybe I should wait for daylight?

[I'mdonewiththis forum]

1 minute ago, Big5er said:

Does kinda make me wanna go look at my ramps. Maybe I should wait for daylight?

Naw. With the kind of eagle eyes drivers think you inspectors have...........

[billr]

Pics of the ramp hinge area would be great. 

I have not looked at the Smart ramps to compare   I have the Big boys II. 8 yrs in use. 

Wonder if there is a different hinge used?

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Did the pin in the hinge fail or did the socket that the pin rest in open?  Pics would be nice.  

[rdickinson]

Throwing anything around is a possible recipe for disaster.  I'm the only one to handle my ramps and they a placed carefully in their allotted storage spots.

I also use 2' of self Velcro to keep the open ends from flying around when being handled.

I can picture damage if they are pitched or dropped from the truck deck landing on the hinge on the ground.

Mine are out right now but will be checked before the car is loaded again.