smart Center – Boston

This is a review for what you will have to deal with AFTER leasing a smart car. For the longest time my statements wouldn’t display on the smart owners bill pay website. After numerous complaints, they are now displaying. I am a software developer, so I know my way around technology, and the online payment system is unmanageable. Right now my bill pay says I owe negative 17 cents. And my statement says I owe $ 431. SO I have no idea what I owe! Mercedes tries to get you with their name, yet they cannot even invest in updating their old technology. Their customer service is horrible, and you are left guessing at what you really owe.
To be fair, I understand this is really a review for the smart center. Todd was great in working with us. I wish we knew what a hassle giving money to mercedes was going to be though. I will not be renewing my lease just because of the horrible process I go through once a month to pay my bill.
The repair center is horrible. We got in a fender bender and it took two weeks for them to fix it. I had to call and email several times just to get any status on when I would get my car back. They apparently ordered the wrong part… no apology or anything. Just an oops, we ordered the wrong part. Didn’t even care that this car was my main source of transportation.
Also, the people that work in the center are obnoxious.
The only good thing about mercedes is Todd — the sales guy is pleasant.
**EDIT. Now, it also says I owe $ 583. So one spot on the bill pay website says I owe $ 431, another spot says I owe $ 583. This is absurd. Join us in the year 2015 smart.

Never expect to get everything (or anything) fixed on the first visit. Also be prepared for several hours on each visit. Check-​in, getting the car checked out and then learning that part is not in stock took 2.5 hours. Probably the last hour was wasted on a free car wash. Then the second trip was a record breaker. In and out in just over 1.5 hours. That was the fastest ever. They must have skipped the car wash, which I appreciate. Saving an hour is more important.
Hey, you can get a free doughnut and coffee (if you come early enough) while you waste your time waiting for this slow operation. Thank you Meagan though — you were the only bright spot of the visits.
It is still a disorganized operation, so I never would come here without a warranty issue.

This was my first ever experience getting a car, and I approached the process with some trepidation. I never thought a customer experience could be this nice, from beginning to end. Todd was knowledgeable, really pleasant and not at all high pressure; I enjoyed the test drives of two different models (pure coupe and electric coupe) and all the subsequent encounters. He was also on top of everything that needed to happen paperwork-​wise. Fred A. (who was there when I got the car) was also very nice and smart. The whole experience felt like a great encounter between reasonable adults, not a zero-​sum game of who gets to benefit at the cost of the other. Some highlights: a courtesy car while I was waiting to get ev plates on the new electric smart, Todd running after me to give me cold water for the drive home on a really hot, muggy day, and a great choice of ice cream (thanks, Fred!) when I went to get the car. I don’t ever want to buy a car from anywhere else after this… Also, I love my new electric drive smart. Super zippy and perfect for Boston traffic, even the I-​90!

Decided to buy one of these little cars as a good second car/​commuter vehicle. The sales style here is geared to the soft sell as most people shopping here have already convinced themselves on the purchase.
Sales process was easy. We decided on the full electric model. It has a range around 70ish miles. The colder the temperature the worse the mileage on electrics. Got one with almost all the bells and whistles except GPS for no money down and about $ 190 a month for a 36 month lease. It’s been over a month and we are very happy with the purchase.
They lose a star because while our sales person we dealt with was great, outstanding actually, it does seem that the location is minimally staffed. It seems you call the store directly but you have to call through the Mercedes dealership.

I had a wonderful experience buying a Smart (my first car in 10 years!) and I am having an even better experience parking it in the narrowest of North End parking spots!

Leased a new smart car. Got Mercedes quality service at smart car price — can’t do better than that. The entire transaction went smoothly and the business office was instrumental in negotiating a favorable lease and securing a loyalty discount offered by the manufacturer. All I had to do was bind insurance coverage, fill out the paperwork and present payment. The next day Todd, the salesperson picked me up and drove me to the dealership where he handed me the keys to my newly registered smart. He also took the time to educate me about all the buttons and switches so I could start enjoying the vehicle immediately.
I LOVE driving my smart. Traveling on MBTA does not compare. Parking in Southie is normally a bloodsport but driving a smart makes it fun! Now I just ease my smart into spaces that every other driver passes by. My smart is well equipped and I appreciate the heated seats, power windows, the great windshield wipers and sound system — complete with an AUX input and USB port. Seems to go forever on a full tank and insurance rates are favorable. The worst part of ownership so far has been reading a note left under my windshield wiper that ridiculed me for being a «planet-​saver» because I chose to drive a smart! Todd was a pleasure to work with and helped me negotiate a great lease agreement. Highly recommended.

Too bad zero stars is not an option. I’d give this dealership 5 stars on the sales side (you are buying from Smart USA) and zero stars on the service side (you are dealing with a Herb Chambers Mercedes shop.
If you want to own a Smart car in the Boston area good luck to you because you will be stuck dealing with Herb Chambers each and every time you need service and Herb Chambers is not only a ridiculously overpriced dealership they are also completely incompetent in dealing with Smart car owners. I have to assume they treat their Mercedes customers better than they do their Smart customers otherwise they’d be out of business. I love my Smart and despite all the crazy questions I’ve gotten about the car (can you drive it on the highway, do you feel safe, etc.) over the years I tell people the only bad thing about owning a Smart car is having it serviced at Herb Chambers.
The first and primary problem is that Smart and Mercedes is an incompatible marriage where the two partners are not equal. This is NOT a Mercedes/​Smart dealership, it is a Mercedes dealership that happens to have a little side business selling Smart cars. When you call the voice system doesn’t say: «Thank you for calling Mercedes Benz and Smart Center of Boston» it says «thank you for calling Mercedes Benz of Boston.» Period. There is no «press 2 for Smart». You just get a Mercedes guy on the phone who had to deal with the inferior Smart brand. The Smart people get sloppy seconds and I’m not talking about the wifi and the donuts. I’m talking about service reps who *never* call to let you know when your car is ready (never, ever, ever); parts that are always out of stock and general incompetence. They would *never* get away with the type of service they give the Smart car owners if they extended the same poor service to their Mercedes customers.
And every time I go for service the service gets worse. It doesn’t matter if the car is in or out of warranty. I have had a problem almost every time I’ve been there. Once I called around 4 pm to see if my car was ready and they hadn’t even looked at it. Another time I took it in for some routine stuff like a broken tail light and they didn’t have a single light bulb in stock. I have been overcharged. I’ve had them perform unauthorized work (no one ever called with the estimate after I was assured they would call once they had an estimate). I have complained to the service manager (overwhelmed and clearly out of her league) and I have even complained directly to Smart USA (form response). If I could do one thing over again it would be to wait until I no longer live in Massachusetts before buying a Smart car. Having to have my car serviced at a Mercedes dealership makes having a Smart car a truly unattractive option. There are all the little inconveniences like no night drop (because the dealership is located in a slum and the cars would get stolen) and the big inconveniences of having to have the car serviced alongside the truly incompatible culture of Mercedes.
As painful as it has been a little part of me is glad that I learned about how Herb Chambers conducts its business with an inexpensive Smart car because from that has emerged a much more important lesson: never buy anything from a Herb Chambers dealership. Ever.
They are smarmy, overpriced and incompetent.

The guys who work at this smart center have a really poor attitude.
They always talked down to me when I called and I always felt like getting my car serviced was secondary to whatever else they had going on.
And whenever I call the dealership and ask to talk to someone in the Smart center the lady that answers the phone is like «Oh. You’re one of those. SIGH. Hold on.»

Technically it’s a Mercedes Service Center with Smart piggy backing it. There’s only 2 dealerships that is authorized to do service on Smartcars and this is one of them.
I came in for recalls and 10k service for my Smart. The tech greeter showed me which service office to write up and offered me a bottle of spring water. The service manager was professional and out going. Kindly told me that it will be a couple hours waiting and showed me the waiting room.
In the waiting room, I quietly surfed the web on their courtesy computers for two hours. When two hours was around the corner, my service manager came over to give me an update and be out in another 30 – 45 mins. After a couple hours on the chair, I was due for a stretch. I headed to the refreshment center and grabbed another bottle of water. Then I noticed a sign to help yourself on the cream and milk in the fridge. I think it’s implied for the coffee; but it didn’t say that so I poured myself a cup of milk. Ahhhhh, rich calcium!
As I paid the bill, I noticed a basket of apples. I asked if I can take one for the road. Yummm! I’m not shy to pick up complimentary items that I like!
As I waited for my car, the tech who worked on my car asked me if I was informed about my alarm which I asked them to look at. It’s very good of them that I get the info twice.
As I got into my car and closed my door. I noticed that the bright orange # tag was still on my dash, so I put it aside on the passenger floor. Then, appearing out of no where, a guy stands right by my window. I opened the window and said he can take the tag for me.
It feels like I’m being stalked. It’s all good tho — impeccable service!

The people at the smart dealership in Somerville have a pretty easy job right now. They’ve got a year-​long waiting list of people who pre-​ordered a new smart car, and they get to call people up and see if they actually want to buy it. And if they don’t, then they get to sell it to any number of other eagerly awaiting customers.
It’s a pretty simple dealership, befitting the car they sell. You walk in, you see the car. Either you think it’s awesome or it’s insane, but either way, you gawk.
i don’t have a huge amount of experience buying a car, but these folks were plenty helpful, and have a real enthusiasm for the product (the salesman i spoke with had all but sold one over the phone to the lady from my insurance company, which is impressive, considering she had never heard of this make of car which i was about to insure).
Oh, and did i mention that smarts are insanely great?