I owned a Smart car for two years. It's not unpleasant at all. It was my daily driver. I drove from San Jose to Los Angeles in it and up in the Sierras over 900

I owned a Smart car for two years. It's not unpleasant at all. It was my daily driver. I drove from San Jose to Los Angeles in it and up in the Sierras over 9000 feet. The interior is plastic. What were you expecting, Corinthian leather with wood accents? I didn't notice any handling problems. It does handle differently than a larger car, but it's not a large car. There was a problem with the automatic transmission not always being very good about changing gears, but my model came with shift paddles, so I didn't tend to use the fully automatic mode too much. The biggest issue with maintenance was that there aren't a lot of dealerships to take it to, so depending on where you live, it can be a hassle. There certainly were problems. For example, the clear plastic roof developed crazing. The lack of a spare was annoying. The biggest issue for me is that drivers in other cars didn't tend to see me, especially on the highway. I actually was both rear-ended and side-swiped in it. Eventually I traded it in and bought a 4wd truck that was helpful for my work but only gets 19mpg and is a lot harder to park.