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Rocky

Drying Out Smart Cabrio?

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I recently bought a SMART Cabrio which had been sitting on a BC dealer's lot for quite sometime. The engine compartment carpet is saturated with water right through the foam backing to metal underneath. It is sunny and barely above freezing here in Alberta. How do I get this carpet dried out before it rots? Heaven knows how long it has been saturated. Anyone removed the carpet in a 450 series cabrio? How much work is it to do? Right now I have the hatch open and engine compartment cover off and the carpet sitting up sort of vertical, however I am concerned the moisture will simply migrate to the rest of the carpet. Initially I thought it would dry out as I drove around with the heat on. WRONG!!Do I try and squish the moisture out?Do I try and remove the entire carpet and dry it out indoors?Do I try and use hairdryers as a source of heat?Other suggestions please & thank you. By the way I really have no idea where the leak source was and the dealer really had no idea how to operate the cabrio roof so I am not asking for likely leak sources at this time.Rocky

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In my NON professional opinion I would say remove the carpet, but there is a secret about removing carpet as you have to remove the seats first. But, to remove the seats you must disconnect the air bags but to disconnect the air bags you must disconnect the battery. So, in the proper order, diconnect the battery, disconnect the side air bags, remove the seats and then remove the carpet. BUT WAIT until someone else agrees with me, but this is way I can remember that you have to do it but, I have never done it. You don't want to set off the airbag or trip the airbag sensor because you will have to go to the dealer to get it reset.

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Go get a wet/dry shop vac and suck as much water up as you can before starting to rip up the carpet. Then if you have access to a portable de-humidifier stick it in the car and let it run for 24 hours or so. This should get the rest of the water out.Dennis

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You could also try sending it to a detail center for a proper rug shampoo. Their machines will not only get the must and mildew out but pull out all the water too. What's more, it's probably affordable and infinitely easier than doing it yourself. There's not a home-vac on the planet that will get it as dry as a commercial shampooer.

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Well Smarties, when I started to see really how much moisture was present I removed the carpet in the rear after figuring out that it was a two piece affair. Yes I had to remove the rear seat bolts on the driver's seat and all of the bolts holding down the passenger seat and then work the carpet our from around the emergency brake.I do not see any plug for disconnecting the air bag electrical cables from either seat??? Not on the seat bottom or pan or mounting bracket, nor is there a plug in the black cables that go on to join in some master cables, so any ideas on where you disconnect the individual seat air bag cables from the seat???Now that I have the rear carpet mat and backing out of the car I realize what a cheap carpet it is. There was so much squishy water in it, and it had leaked down into the pan under both seats there was no other way to dry this car out without removing the rear carpet entirely. I pulled up the carpet where the battery box is and there was water under there as well. If I had done this in colder weather the carpet would have been frozen to the floor!!!I am amazed at the construction debris left in the car from fabrication, pieces of stripped insulation, heat shrink, globs of solder. The boys and girls on the assembly line definitely took pride in building this Smart :<{(.Anyone with instructions on how to easily remove the underseat drawer on the driver's side? I know I can drill out the pop rivets but all I want to is slide the drawer off its tracks so I can easily get at the front seat mounting bolts. That ought to make installation of a dried out carpet much easier.Thanks for the help.Rocky

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A couple of warnings for you.The airbags have a disconnect in the line that is clipped up inside the underseat frame. My cable was held to the under frame by a spring clip and the diconnect has a plastic holder with an arrow head fitting that is pushed through a hole in the frame. Careful you don't break the elastic band around the holder as they are not spareable. You need to be careful when you disconnect ththe connector parts as it has a fragile plastic internal latch. I broke mine so the connector wouldn't stay connected and the airbag warning light goes on when you reapply power. That requires a dealer reset and the replacement part was about $60 because it is the wire with plugs at both ends. If I had broken the car side rather than the seat side it would be a new interior wiring harness at (I was told) about $1400! There is a knack to disconnecting them but it's difficult to describe in words so look carefully before you pull!The underseat drawer has a plastic tab at each side on the top which when you see it out is obvious but is difficult to manipulate the first time. I drilled out the rivets and replaced them with nut plates and screws to make future removal easier.Good luck!

Edited by 2seatragtop

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pull it into a heated garage.

i do that every night and mine is never dry

Go get a wet/dry shop vac and suck as much water up as you can before starting to rip up the carpet. Then if you have access to a portable de-humidifier stick it in the car and let it run for 24 hours or so. This should get the rest of the water out.Dennis

now there is a good idea...i notice under the carpet on the passenger side it is always wet

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I am amazed at the construction debris left in the car from fabrication, pieces of stripped insulation, heat shrink, globs of solder. The boys and girls on the assembly line definitely took pride in building this Smart :<{(.

Don't tar smart gmbh with that brush; those modifications were likely made at Halifax by a contractor working for Mercedes. All of the early cars' modifications for the CDN market were done in Halifax. If you car was made before the fall of 2005, that is the source. Some of these modifications also happened in Halifax on later cars.

As for the water, it likely came in from an improperly latched tailgate (the right side is sometimes recalcitrant) and also make sure that both sides of the soft top are snapped into place just above where the tailgate latches are.

With that much water ingress, you may be looking at some expensive electrical repairs, unless the car is under warranty. Is there a silver electrical box in the battery well? If so, get it out ASAP. There is a Service Bulletin about this, as well as about the installation of a battery box drain grommet. Get it done, pronto! And hope your electrical system hasn't suffered....

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And disconnect the battery if you're going to do any work by yourself.

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The Smart carpets make excellent sponges unfortunately. We spilt some teriaki sauce one time an it took me a whole day to clean it up. The reason they seem cheap - besides being cheap - is they wanted to keep the weight down - thicker carpets weigh a lot.So - the seats - make sure you connect 'em back the same way you disconnected them. Watch the clips on the connector - they can snap pretty easily. Apparently the dealers are dispensing with the connector entirely if there is an air bag issue and soldering the ends together.For getting rid of the water - first taking the carpets out is a good thing - the water tends to migrate from the surface into the sponge layer - and good luck in getting it out if it is in the car - I had a heat lamp and a heater in the car to try and hurry the process up - and that was from just using a carpet cleaner. Have been around boats most of my life - getting rid of water comes with that. You will need to get the interior dry as well - go to an RV store and get some Dri-Z-Air and a holder - think wally mart sells it too- basically it is calcium chloride that will drag moisture out of the air. Second get a plain old 60 watt light bulb and holder so the bulb doesn't touch anything - this provides enough heat to get the air circulating and moisture moving with out torching the car. You also can get some electronics cleaner - this can be sprayed on any connectors or electrical bits that are damp to drive the water out. You can use WD40 but it stinks to high heaven - not attractive in a car.Leave it to dry until there is no more accumulation of water in the Dri-Z-Air holder say in a 2 day period. leave the light bulb running as much as possible.Now you have to deal with the odor - get yourself some baking soda and lay it out in some flat dishes (paper plates - not the wife's china - unless you like sleeping in the car). Also Febreze with the mildew killer is a good idea.You are also going to have to keep cleaning the windows until the moisture is out - tends to make them goopy - so remember that before you drive off a night and discover you can't see. :o Have peek up under the dash as well - look for condensation - a bad thing - stuffing a towel up in the area will soak it up and act a bit as an insulator.Good luck with it and hopefully it dries out nicely with no further issues.Cheers,Cameron

Edited by Speedie

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You gotta wonder if the dealer left the cabrio open in the rain and just didn't say anything. It came from BC, wonderful we(s)t coast, after all. May not have any leak at all, just got soaked and they played dumb? Could be worth passing the buck back to the dealer if you can.

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I saw a cabriolet that had been at Speedway Motors (Victoria VW dealer) where the soft top was not latched properly on one side. The car wash boy was spraying it "REAL" good, as they say ;) That thing was there out in the rain, top unlatched, for at least 10 months. I knew a guy who was looking for one and I steered him away from it. He bought a 451 actually!When the top is unlatched on one or the other side, the water pours into the tailgate. Just pours.I sure hope it's not that car, because it was SOAKED. In the cold dry weather, the windows were a sea of condensation, inside.

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I'm wondering about moisture in the Cabrio's in general. I stopped by a dealership in North Vancouver last week and they had about 6 or 7 used 450 Cabrio's on the lot. All of them had fogged up window's due to moisture and the two non-cabrio's did not. Living on the Wet Coast we get half a year of rain, is moisture an on going problem with these soft top cars?

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The top doesn't leak if it's latched properly and the roof bar seals are lined up.

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