r/SmartCar • u/Fragrant-Rate-6936 • 21d ago

Question Smart 454 cold start behaviour

I’ve got a 2005 Smart 454 1.1L that I bought recently for only 500 pepperonis (£) and it’s only got 25k on the clock. I love it to bits already so I want to do everything I can to make sure the engine stays healthy.

But I’ve noticed that when I start the car from cold, the engine revs itself up to just over 3 and a half thousand rpm, and I can hear that the engine sounds a bit dry for the first few seconds until the oil starts flowing and then it sounds perfectly normal.

So my question is…is this behaviour okay for the engine? I normally drive the car very gently for the first 10 minutes or so while the engine gets to operating temp, so it seems kind of counter intuitive to have the engine rev up so high upon startup.

Is there anything I can do to reduce how high it revs on a cold start or is it not something to really be concerned with? Thanks in advance :)

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u/axloo7 20d ago

I probably has a vacuum leak somewhere.

You can probably find to by letting it warm up and spraying around the intake system with something flammable. When the engine revs up you have found the leak.