There are many things in life I’m not confident about. I wouldn’t be confident handling an engine swap and I doubt my own abilities. But one thing I’m sure about is the encyclopedia of knowledge I have built up about the Smart Fortwo over a full two-thirds of my life thus far. Yet, something just happened that I’ve never seen before and it sent me into a panic.
Recently, I’ve written that I have decided to reconfigure my fleet, selling everything that isn’t a dream car. This has also brought me back to my roots. I’ve been daily driving Volkswagens and other cars for more than three years, forgetting about the adorable Smart Fortwos I’m known for. However, now that I had sold off almost all of the Volkswagens and other assorted junk, I went back to my favorite cars. I bought a dream Smart and now I’m driving Smarts daily again. I’ve almost forgotten the happiness these cars bring me.
Most of my Smarts are special to me in some way, so I don’t subject them to harsh Midwestern winters. That’s why I bought a high-mileage 2008 Smart Fortwo Passion Coupe for $1,400 back in 2020. This car isn’t special and has been roughed up by city life and by a deer, so having it as the hard-working off-road project and daily doesn’t hurt. This car has even proven itself on the Gambler 500 at least once already.
Sadly, it’s also the car I’ve neglected the most. I parked it in 2021 after getting distracted by numerous Volkswagen TDIs. It’s been sitting in one of my secret storage lots ever since. Thankfully, I’ve ended this car’s stay in purgatory. Last month, I brought the little guy back to life.
Look how filthy it was!
Sitting in outdoor storage did cause some issues. The rear brakes were seized, locking the wheels in place. I didn’t have enough muscle or leverage to free them with my hand tools, so I got creative. Yanking the car with my Touareg a couple of times freed up the wheels. They haven’t caused a problem since. Next came a new battery, plus teaching the transmission that it’s still a transmission, which is a simple enough process. Just put your foot on the brake pedal and listen for the clutch actuator and transmission shift motor to wake up.
From there, I gave the car its first wash in years. I still have a lot more cleaning to do and a couple of maintenance items to take care of, including removing the stickers from the defunct business I bought it from. But it was all deeply satisfying. The car drives just like it did when I parked it. That was until today.
My Steering Wheel Is Doing What?
This morning was supposed to be simple. I was just supposed to drive to a polling place, do my duty, then get back to write. But my car had other ideas. The first bit of weirdness came when my steering wheel was sticky to the touch. It was so sticky that my hands felt glued to the wheel. It felt like my steering wheel just partially “melted” in my hands.
I thought to myself: “Did I forget to wash my hands or something?” I cleaned my hands with hand sanitizer, but that didn’t work. Worse, my hands were beginning to turn black from touching my steering wheel. The longer I drove the car, the more it felt as if the steering wheel was converting into a different substance in my hands. What the?
Remember, I started driving this car again a month ago. This wasn’t happening then and it didn’t happen on Sunday when I last drove the car. Just to be super thorough, it was raining on Sunday, too, so it was wet and humid then, too. Anyway, by the time I got near home, my hand was fully black with something sticky from the steering wheel, and the wheel continued to transfer the sticky stuff to anything unlucky enough to touch it. It got on my hoodie, my pants, and even my legs. Even worse, this crap came off only with a good scrubbing.
At some point I couldn’t take it anymore, so I pulled over and decided to take action. I broke out an interior cleaner plus some towels from a gas station and just started cleaning the wheel over and over. The steering wheel transferred dark black something to several towels while the surface of the wheel appeared to have brown soap-like wet streaks. After about 20 minutes or so of cleaning the wheel finally stopped transferring and thankfully, it was no longer sticky.
Still, what gives?
I once wrote a guide on how to inspect a used second-generation Smart before you buy it. I won’t link it here because it desperately needs an update, but anyway, one way to get a gauge on mileage accuracy is to look at the steering wheel. A pristine Smart wheel from a low-mile car will have a matte pebble effect in its leather. The 28,000-mile convertible I bought last month shows what that’s supposed to look like:
It’s pretty well-known in the Smart world that Smart cheaped out on the standard leather in its second-generation cars. Both the steering wheel and the seats get low-grade leather with what appears to be a plasticized outer coating. Only special editions like the Brabus Tailor Made have the kind of leather you’d really expect to see in a luxury car.
As second-generation Smarts age, the coated matte leather turns shiny from your grubby hands grasping the wheel. Then, at some point, and it’s usually in cars with tons of miles of hard use, the “pebble” surface wears away, revealing a smooth surface with pits and other imperfections.
My 2008’s steering wheel still had most of its pebbled surface, but it was beginning to come apart. I just thought that over time, the steering wheel would just become smooth from friction or something, you know, just normal wear from turning a wheel for over 100,000 miles.
However, as I seemingly confirmed today, there has to be some sort of chemical process happening here. My steering wheel was basically molting its outer coating into my hands. Then, it continued molting into several towels as I desperately tried to clean it up.
Sure enough, my wheel is now smooth like most of the other high-mileage second-gen Smarts I’ve seen out there. The sticky feeling is gone and my hands aren’t turning black from touching it. My steering wheel’s surface basically came apart like the radio buttons in a car from the 2000s.
I’ve seen a lot of explanations for this phenomenon, from the oils in your hands wearing down the steering wheel surface to years of UV and ozone exposure causing the plasticizer in the leather to weep. Then, one day it hits you by making your steering wheel gooey. This, apparently, is also what causes your car’s buttons to feel “gummy” after two decades. Still, I’ve never seen this turn a whole hand black. Yuck!
We’d love to get a real explanation from an expert in this field. If you know what’s happening here and with those notorious interior buttons, we’d love to hear from you and write a follow-up article. Drop us a line at tips@theautopian.com or me at mercedes@theautopian.com.
As for my car, this is the first time I’ve seen this sort of failure in my nearly 17 years of being addicted to Smarts. And I’ve seen everything from engine failures due to burned valves to mysterious rust. This car has mysterious rust! I guess I’m now adding “steering wheel melts into hands” to my list of things that can go wrong. Oh well, I’m still stoked to be daily-driving a Smart again.
I’ve had similar experience with the rubbery coating on my mid 90s binoculars. One day in 2019 or so it rubbed off so I attacked them with alcohol until I got smooth plastic. The optics are still good so I live with it. IIRC some GM cars have a similar issue our 2003 Buick has peeling steering wheel buttons. Again the car is still running well so it’s our daughter’s daily driver until it blows up
Oh you sheltered young thing you. Literally every 80s car did this, which is why those wraparound wheel covers were everywhere.
Your sticky radio buttons are from “plasticiser migration” – basically, the chemicals that give the buttons that nice, soft touch feel when new leech out with time and look and feel disgusting. We’ve all experienced it on one device or another, it’s almost like the plastic is trying to turn itself back into oil.
The leather wrapped steering wheel though… can’t explain that one!
The wheel on my ford focus ended up doing something similar. Eventually those soft touch style plastics just starts breaking down. I’ve seen it happen with tools that have similar soft touch over-molding, especially when they get certain other chemicals on them. It apparently accelerates the reaction.
Because parts of the steering wheel had actually worn away with time I ended up deciding against trying to do a sew on wrap and instead tossed a generic steering wheel cover on it which protected my hands and the rest of the interior from getting stuff on them from the shedding wheel for the last couple of years I owned it.
The steering wheel on my ’07 Express van turns my hands black when it gets damp. High humidity will do it. But that’s because it has 17 years and 350K miles of hand grime caked to the wheel. I’ve tried cleaning it, but it’s like trying to get all the dirt out of a mud bog. Maybe I’ll give it another try tomorrow.
I forget what causes the stickiness, but I get that on old game controllers, especially cheap ones. Super irritating, and I’d be very upset if my car had that happen. It’s not uncommon though, generally.
I googled it once, and found out that some TLC with a baking soda mix should be able to clean it up, but I’ve never tried it. I’ve never had that happen to something I wasn’t throwing out already…
An emergency stop at the gas station to spend 20 minutes and a roll of paper to clean up. Yup, I know that feeling.
I noticed that the trim pieces around the inside of the windshield in my ’03 Z4 have been sticky for the past few years. Its only driven one month in the summer, so I haven’t really gone after it, but it kind of like fly paper and is starting to accumulate lots of particles and hair. Is a 20 minute scrub a solution for that as well?
Eww. Hate to say, but I’ve been there. My ‘99 K2500’s steering wheel had basically disintegrated by the time I got it, leaving my hands with a similar residue the day I brought it home. I attribute it to the PO’s (well, the previous driver, it was a municipal vehicle) body chemistry. My ‘96 K1500 has the same steering wheel and with over 100k more miles on it, is in fantastic shape. Since I’m cheap and the K2500 is a beater/ tow pig, I put on a cheap steering wheel cover and called it a day.
On a similar note, in a previous life I owned a luthier shop and it was always very interesting to see how different guitar player’s sweat/oils/whatever affected how their guitar wore. I must have fairly neutral chemistry because my guitars’ frets never tarnish and rarely need polishing. Some guitars I worked on for customers were absolutely filthy after relatively little play time. I’ve seen corroded frets, frets that wore down horribly, fretboards that were so funky and nasty that regular cleaners wouldn’t work, finish that was permanently faded and stained by acidic sweat, sticky necks, ruined volume pots from corrosion, etc. the human body is a fascinating thing, and our wonderfully different personal chemistries sometimes lead to unusual reactions to surfaces.
At least you voted, right?
The good news is that it’ll only cost you $50-$100 for a replacement.
Definitely shouldn’t be a deal breaker when shoping for a Smart car.