Kabrio

Hey Everybody, I apologize if this is posted in the wrong area but we are moving from Northwest Indiana outside of Chicago to a Fredericksburg, Virginia an hour south of Washington DC. Do any of you know of a shop near here or there that could service our 450? Please help... Thanks J&K

Hey all- just got 2 alerts of attempted redirects from the board in my browser. Avast caught 2 attempts to redirect my browser from the 450 forum. (And no, it's not my browser.) I just wanted to let ya know someone is hacking our board.... Thanks.

Hey everybody, I haven't pulled the SAM yet, but I plan to do that and check the board. I know water did find it's way into the car- probably the windshield, although I read that there could be leaks around the windshield wiper motor area. At one point I saw drops of water on a crossmember of the frame below the windshield after driving in a surprise torrential rain last year. I wanted to check and see if water was finding it's way in as I had read on other posts, because the headlights were acting weird and would only work on high beams. I saw a couple of drops on the frame as described but no water found it's way to the floor, and the headlight issue had resolved on it's own. I wanted to attach photos of the corrosion on the connector for anyone else with problems but couldn't figure out how to do this... AND- I know I should be able to repair bad traces on a board, but if that isn't the issue, or doesn't fix the problem, any suggestions of who to contact near Michigan/Indiana for help/repair? Thanks...

So, after researching thoroughly, I made time to disconnect the SAM. (Wow was that unnecessarily difficult.) I found corrosion at connector N11-8, and used DEOxit to clean up the connector and the pins on the SAM itself. After considering what a chore it was to remove and disconnect the SAM, I cleaned all connectors and dried them. I eventually reconnected everything and decided to see if this had corrected the problem. Well- good news was that the Left turn signal wasn't flashing, but the bad news is that now when left turn is indicated, no flashing is happening at all on the left side. And I now have a single bar in the middle of the display flashing with all of the fuel and temp level lights (apparently indicating that the CAN is not sensing something.) All connections were checked. I'm beginning to think we may have to trailer it and take it to a shop in Canada...

Well, I'll be checking on that. I suppose I'll drop the SAM and check the connectors first. I'm not sure how to check out the turn signal switch without replacing it. Fingers crossed it's just a bad connection...

Our 450 cabrio has started flashing left turn indicator/signal despite the indicator stalk being in the neutral, non-turning position. It continues when the indicator is selected to make a left turn, stops and blinks for right turn if moved up for a right turn, but when returned to the middle, non-turning position, continues to indicate/ flash for left turn. All of the bulbs appear to be intact. Any ideas? Could this suggest corrosion at the SAM? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks- John

Sorry but- yikes is that ugly. Can't wait to hear what Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May say about that thing.

Just wanted to address earlier post, Tire Rack is an excellent place to source tires/wheels down here in the states, with good quality and pricing. I can't comment on the pricing to Canada, but their shipping costs in the US are competitive. I bought a set of Altimax tires (studded option) for $52 a tire and $35 shipping for the set for my wife's Suzuki X-90 4wd and I cannot say enough good things about the purchase experience or the tires. I have also been told that they have an installation center in South Bend, Indiana not far from us where they will mount and balance for reasonable cost for those of you close enough to make the drive... You might consider checking their site and giving them a call. Good Luck!

Thank you for the replies! I checked out the switch- and it "appears" to be working OK now, but I may have a replacement on the shopping list pretty soon. I'll also check the SAM and the "ebox." We're going to drive it around this weekend and see if the issue returns/replicates. Thanks again!

Hi Mike,It's a cdi. Here's the really weird thing, I shut the car off completely and started it up again and the high beams still would not turn off, so I eventually gave up and called it a night. I should also point out that the wife explained that the hi beams "came on by themselves" while she was driving with the low beams on too. Anyway, at this point 2 days later, I went out and started the car- driving lights came on- so I rotated the switch to turn on the low beams- and now the high beams are off. WTF? I didn't try to turn the hi beams on for fear I wouldn't be able to shut them off again. But after driving around the brights never came on by themselves- so it appears they are functioning normally again. So any thoughts on this? Thanks for the help- J

I've searched everywhere, but can't find any info on this problem, or the fix so I thought I'd ask other 450 owners up north about this weird headlight issue. Our 2006 Cabrio suddenly developed an inability to turn off it's high beams. The Daytime Running Lights (low beams) are on when the light stalk is in the lights off position. If you rotate the selector to turn on parking lights, the parking lights come on with the running lights, but if you rotate the selector one more click (to the last position) to turn on the low/dipped beams with the dash lights the brights, high beams, full beams (depending on what continent you're in) AND the low/dipped beams come on. Pressing the stalk forward and back makes no difference- all four forward bulbs are on all the time. In other words, as long as the selector is set to run the headlights, the hi beams are on with the low beams, and moving the stalk doesn't turn them off. Has anyone experienced this? Does anyone know of a possible fix? Any suggestions would be appreciated, thank you! -J

$4K plus 10 hours of labor for repair of an engine harness? I'm no tech, but that seems extremely steep to me. It should be possible, although somewhat labor intensive (but not 10 hours) to splice, solder and reconnect...?

Hi Izzy,I realize it has been several days since your initial post, but I have to chime in here. If the car sat in pouring rain all night, you really, really need to have the car gone over by a good detail or auto body shop to clean the entire interior with a bacteriostatic and mold-killing detergent. A car that has moisture sitting in the carpets, seats and nooks and crannies will grow mold rather quickly- which will get sucked into your ac if run on recirculate. Mold in a car can make you sick, and at a minimum will smell bad, especially on hot, humid days.

We still have not been able to source a tank for the swap. Where in Canada are you? Will send pm.

Thank you for the reply. We were unaware the gas 450 hadn't made it to Canada, and that would actually explain alot. We checked with our smart dealer to see if we could get parts through them and were told that they were unable to get parts for Smarts that were not sold through their US dealer network. So it seems we're in the market for a gasser 450 tank- which was not released to the US or Canada. We are going to continue to try and get this swap done soon however. If anyone has any other info or hints it would be much appreciated. Thanks again!