Rudy Van Egdom

I had a problem with my ZRX-1100 starting. When it was hot after running for a while the bike would not start. The engine turned over good and fast but it would not start. When cooled down it would start just fine or when on a hill it jump started right away. Time to make some tests. I took a volt meter and checked the battery voltage. When not running it was just over 12 volts. Not bad. When I tried to start the bike the voltage dropped down to 8.7 volts. I tested the bike with a jumper cable from another battery and the starting problem was solved. I think what happened was that the electronic ignition would not work when the battery voltage goes below 9 volts. A new battery solved the problem.

I also replace the center two spark plug caps. It stopped the once in a while back fire when wet. The copper inside the spark plug wire was coroded away from the connector from the moisture that sometimes collects in the spark plug hole..

I have a Smart car. I have this because it saves me money on fuel. Last summer the transmission started acting up. It would not shift and the gear selector desplay would show three horizontal bars. The problem seemed to go away and I did not think about it until last week. It would seem that when the car is started the computer shifts the transmission through the gears and then goes into neutral so it can be started. I started hearing a lot of noise coming from the transmission and it would take some time to get to neutral. After reading all sorts of horror stories on the internet I started thinking about the transmission and it is basically an electronically shifted manual transmission. Smart says you do not need to change the oil for the life of the car. Even when I had automatic transmissions in cars I would change the oil every 50.000 km, give or take. Anyway I decided that the Smart recommendation of not changing the oil is stupid. All oil brakes down eventually and so did the oil in my transmission because once I drained the oil and replace the original oil with Royal Purple 75w90 synthetic gear oil all my problems went away and the engine light went off after an 80 km trip. So now I am not so happy with the dealer or Mercedes as all they want you to do is come in and have their fools work on your car at $100.00 plus per hour. I have read horror stories on the internet about people having the same problem and the dealer does not know how to fix the problem.

When the car had about 40,000 km on it the front right brake started making noise. The brake pad had worn to its limit and there for the squeeling. The other side was fine. I replace both and that is when I discovered the bolt to remove the caliper was a 5 sided bolt. This is correct, 5 sided instead of the usual 6, 12, allen or what ever crap they come up with. Fortunately you do not have to remove the caliper to change the disc brake pad. I guess the caliper became stuck and wore out the pad. The new pads seem to have over 80,000 km on them and seem to last much longer.

I was tired of having Mercedes back ordering the oil filters so I bought an oil filter adapter so I could put on a standart spin on oil filter. This has worked out just fine.

I also bough a radio adapter so I could put in a stereo that would be cheaper then the terrible radio the car came with. Both the oil filter adapter and the radio adapter are from England. Don't you just love the internet. I also have a manual on CD that you install on your computer and it gives you some information about the car. I say some because I could not find anything to do with the transmission except fluid capacity.