Search the Community

So when I purchased my used 06 Smart Fortwo it drove great around town. The first trip out of town I took i started to have what seemed like a random stalling issue. It always allowed me to restart after about 30 seconds when you could hear the Sam unit reset. I drove the car like this for a couple months trying to figure out exactly how I could replicate the stalling issue. While I wasnt able to figure out exactly what was causing it, I was able to read a code P0087 which was a low pressure fuel pump issue. I wasn't going to start randomly swapping out parts and knowing that the sam unit is a common problem, that was the first thing for me to check out. I also found paperwork in the car after cleaning it out and it turns out the previous owner was having stalling issues as well and had dumped nearly 1000 canadian loonies to multiple automotive shops to try to find the problem. Here is the SAM unit pulled out and on the table for disassembly. Opening it up like a book to get into the pins on the back of the boards. My first stop on the back of the board was the 11-3 plug. As show in the photo below, you will notice the straight line of 12 solder points. This is the back side of the 11-3 plug. Do you notice anything wrong? The right 3 pins appear to have actually broken and separated from the board. I took to re-soldering these 3 pins and other ones of concern around them. After re-assembly, the car is running great with no issues and any speeds! To re-cap my issues and to hopefully help other folks: My car would drive fine for what appeared to be any distances at or under 50km/h. I had one stall out of 50 under that speed. When I would drive above 50km/h it would seem I could drive for random distances, some days all the way home but typically it would stall on me. I was starting to think cold days were better and I could drive further or all the way home without issue. Hot days seemed to trigger the stalling issue more frequently. After stalling if possible i tried to drive slow and that usually helped. I started to tap the sam unit when driving was good and only once did I tap the SAM unit and the car stalled at the same time. I wasnt able to replicate it again but I think the first time I tapped the unit and it stalled i must have hit the 11-3 plug. Now looking at what the issue was and the symptoms I was having I am assuming that driving faster created more heat in the SAM unit and eventually lead to the pins disengaging from the board and the car would stall. I dont think vibrations caused the stall but it is possible. Either way, if you are having stalling issues have a look at your SAM. I am happy to dig into a SAM unit for you as well Chris,