Smart Fortwo 453 H4Bt Oil Change — 0.9L Renault Turbo

Easy 45-60 min $40-70Smart Fortwo 453 Smart Forfour 453

Service interval: Every 6,000 mi or 12 months. Don't stretch a small turbo on long intervals.

Tools you'll need

Jack and a pair of jack stands (or solid ramps)
Wheel chocks
Drain pan (4L+)
Spin-on oil filter wrench (cap or strap style sized to your filter)
Socket for the drain plug (verify hex/Torx for your year)
Torque wrench
New crush washer for the drain plug
Funnel with a long neck
Nitrile gloves and shop rags

Fluids & specs

Fluid	Spec	Capacity
Engine oil — 453 H4Bt (Renault Energy 0.9L TCe turbo)	5W-30 with Renault RN0710 approval. Not MB 229.51. Not a generic 5W-30.	~3.5L with filter

What this is + why it matters

This engine takes Renault spec, not Mercedes spec — and the oil is one of the few things on a 453 you can't share parts with a 451. The 453 H4Bt is the Renault Energy 0.9L TCe, a three-cylinder turbo lifted out of the Renault Twingo. It's not a smaller-bore version of the M132 from the 451 Brabus. It's a different engine, from a different manufacturer, with a different oil approval list on the back of the bottle.

Why that matters: the single most-confused spec on a 453 is engine oil. Owners coming from a 451 reach for MB 229.51 by reflex. That's the wrong call. The H4Bt wants 5W-30 with Renault RN0710 approval — the turbo variant of Renault's spec. Most quick-lube counter 5W-30s are not RN0710-approved. Even some "Mercedes-approved" 5W-30s on the parts shelf don't carry RN0710. Read the back of the bottle before you buy.

The other thing that makes this a separate page from the multi-model overview: on the 453, both the drain plug and the spin-on filter are accessed from underneath. There's no cartridge filter sitting on top of the engine like the 451 M132. You're going under the car for both jobs, which means jack stands or ramps are non-optional. That's the single biggest physical difference vs a 451 oil change.

Interval is 6,000 mi or 12 months. Yes, the owner's manual will let you stretch further. A small turbo with a hot exhaust manifold ten inches from the oil galleries is not an engine to run on a 10,000-mile interval. Oil works hard in there.

What you'll need

The tools and fluid spec are listed above. A few specifics:

A 5L jug of RN0710-approved 5W-30 is the right purchase. Capacity is ~3.5L; the leftover stays in the garage for top-offs. Brands carrying RN0710 include Elf Evolution Full-Tech FE, Total Quartz Ineo First, Castrol Edge Professional, and Mobil 1 ESP variants — verify the back-of-bottle approval, not the marketing.
A fresh crush washer every change. Reusing them is how owners end up with a slow drip on the floor.
A long-neck funnel matters here. The fill neck on the 453 sits awkwardly under the engine cover and freehanding from the jug is how oil ends up everywhere.
Don't buy MB 229.51 5W-30 by reflex. If you owned a 451 first, this will be the temptation. It's the wrong spec.

Step by step

Warm the engine. Five minutes of idle, or a short drive. Warm oil drains faster and pulls more grit out with it. Don't run it long enough that the drain plug is dangerous to touch.
Lift and secure the car. Jack stands at the rated lift points, or solid ramps. Always chock the wheels. Never crawl under a Smart sitting on a jack alone — both the drain plug and the filter are under there, so you're committing to time underneath.
Find the drain plug and the spin-on filter. On the 453, the drain plug is on the underside of the sump, more forward than on a 451, and the spin-on filter sits within reach a short distance from it. Both are accessed from underneath.
Drain the old oil. Position the pan, crack the plug loose with a socket, then back it out by hand the last few turns. Let it drain at least ten minutes. Most of the volume is out in the first minute, but the dirty fraction comes out late.
Spin off the old filter. Have the pan still in position — there's a cup of oil in the filter that will dump as it comes off. Wipe the sealing surface on the engine clean of any old gasket residue.
Prep and install the new filter. Smear a film of fresh oil on the new gasket so it seats and won't bind on first start-up. Spin the filter on by hand until the gasket touches the engine, then hand-tighten plus about three-quarters of a turn. Don't over-torque — this is a hand job, not a wrench job. A wrench-tight spin-on filter is how owners crush the gasket and find a leak two days later.
Reinstall the drain plug with a new crush washer. Snug, then torque to spec for your year. The H4Bt sump threads are aluminium and they will strip if you lean on a 3/8" ratchet.
Refill with the correct oil and capacity. Pour roughly 3.2L in first, then check the dipstick before topping off to the upper mark. Overfilling a small turbo is worse than running a quarter-litre light — too much oil splashed by the crank can foam, and a foamy oil supply is bad news for turbo bearings.
Run the engine and recheck. Start it. Watch the oil pressure light go out within a couple of seconds. If it stays on, shut down immediately — your filter gasket is double-stacked or the pump didn't prime. Idle for a minute, then shut it off and wait five minutes for the oil to settle. Recheck the dipstick. Look under the car for any drip at the plug or filter.
Reset the service indicator. The 453 wants the service reminder reset through the dash menu. Not strictly required, but it stops the nag screen and gives you a clean reset point for tracking the next interval.

Common gotchas

MB 229.51 is the wrong spec for the H4Bt. This is the single most-common mistake. The 453 is built on the Renault Twingo platform; the engine wants Renault approvals, not Mercedes ones. Buy a bottle that explicitly lists RN0710 on the back. RN0700 (the NA approval) is fine for the 1.0L NA B4D — not the turbo.
Quick-lube shops will get the spec wrong. A fast-oil-change place that grabs whatever bulk 5W-30 is on the rack is not putting an RN0710-approved oil in your car. If you outsource this, ask which oil they're using and verify the approval before they start. Or do it yourself — that's why most 453 owners do.
Valve cover gasket leak that pools oil in the cylinder 3 plug well. This is a well-known H4Bt issue and it shows up after an oil change in a way that confuses owners: "I changed my oil and now it's misfiring." The leak was always there. Fresh oil at the higher fill level just makes it slightly more visible faster. The fix is the valve cover gasket and a fresh plug + coil for cylinder 3 — not another oil change. There's a dedicated fault code page for this exact failure mode. Pull the coil cover and look in the plug wells if you suspect it.
Don't confuse engine oil with DCT fluid. Both are "oil" in casual conversation. They are not the same service. The twinamic DCT takes a Getrag-spec dual-clutch fluid that is not interchangeable with engine oil and is not changed at the same interval. See the DCT vs engine oil disambiguation page and the full DCT service page for that procedure — it's a shop job, not a driveway job.
Don't over-torque the spin-on filter. Hand-tight plus three-quarters of a turn. A wrench on the filter is how the gasket crushes and how you end up needing the wrench again next week to remove a filter that's now welded on.
Don't over-torque the drain plug. Aluminium sump. A heli-coil thread repair is a $200 job that started with someone leaning on a ratchet too hard.
6,000 miles is the interval. Don't stretch a small turbo to 10,000 because the dash hasn't reminded you yet. The maintenance reminder is a calendar-and-mileage rule, not an oil-life monitor.

When to skip DIY

If you don't have a way to lift the car safely — proper jack stands, a lift, or solid ramps — outsource this one. Working under any car on a single jack is how people get killed. Same goes if your driveway is on a slope, if you can't dispose of used oil locally, or if you're not confident reading a torque wrench.

A shop oil change on a 453 runs $90-160 depending on whether they actually source RN0710-approved oil. The high end is a Mercedes dealer. The low end is a quick-lube place that's probably going to use whatever 5W-30 is on the rack — which is the other reason a lot of 453 owners do it themselves. If you outsource, ask the shop straight: "Do you stock 5W-30 with Renault RN0710 approval, and are you using it on my car?" If they hesitate or don't know what RN0710 is, find a different shop or buy the right oil yourself and take it with you.

Parts & typical prices

Part	Typical price	Search
Oil filter — spin-on (453 H4Bt)	$10-20	Amazon · eBay · AliExpress · Google
Drain plug crush washer	$1-3	Amazon · eBay · AliExpress · Google
5L jug of RN0710-approved 5W-30	$40-60	Amazon · eBay · AliExpress · Google

Prices are rough community-reported ranges, not quotes. Aftermarket vs. genuine Mercedes parts swing the spread. Marketplace links are non-affiliate.

Manual references

Top reference manuals for this chassis (from our catalog of 88 Smart manuals):

2014-2024 smart (453) - Fuse Allocation & Color Coding Guide — Fuse Allocation Guide, 2p, 0.1 MB
2014-2024 smart (453) - Media System User Guide Supplement — Media System Guide, 77p, 4.3 MB
2014-2024 smart fortwo & forfour (453) - Introduction into Service Manual — Introduction into Service Manual, 122p, 7.6 MB
2014-2024 Smart Fortwo 453 Workshop Manual — Workshop Manual, 4180p, 233.2 MB
2016 smart (451 453) - Genuine Accessories Catalog — Accessories Catalog, 28p, 2.9 MB

Need something specific? Browse all 88 manuals by chassis, year, region, or document type.