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Hi All. My first post! I bought a 2003 Bluewave Roadster from a local garage who was retiring and it was just sat in the car park, flat tires, dead battery, non runner and covered in leaves. Engine light on and 3lines on the speedo…..I hear you cry why! …..It was cheaper than my cars service bill and cute so I bought it. new brake light bulb fixed the 3lines….but my luck ran out there. (Thanks to evilution for all the info so far) A new battery wouldn’t hold charge overnight. I did an amp test and it was pulling 2.8amps and that didn’t change after completely removing the Sam and Ecu. so what’s still live after Sam is removed and any tips on where to look first? Otherwise I entering into the biggest puzzle. This must have happened to someone else….alternator is my next check. thanks all. Aaron.

Greeting. I trust all who see this are safe. An introduction. Name is Chris R. Live in south Florida USA. Not from here originally. I am retired and good with cars and wires. The Smart was something different. I found it in a wreckers yard in 2018. Car was in super good shape for a 2006 fortwo CDI. Story I got was it belonged to an old man. The old man went shopping at a local market and died from a heart attack. No family. The car sat a few weeks and the city had the on contract towing company drag it off the lot, no keys. I saw in the wreckers yard, and asked about it, paid 1200$ US for the car, a new key (I had no idea what that take), title, running and dropped off at my door. I got the car dropped buy a roll back at my home 2 months later with a title and a new console they got from a different wrecker with a key. They had no idea how the SAM worked either. So one thing lead to another. I sent the SAM, ECU, cluster a spare SAM and ECU to SOS Diagnostics, Oregon USA. They first spare SAM I got off of eBay was bad. So I had to buy another one (this is all their requirements to do the work). A month later I had the programed SAM and ECU back for close to 1100$ US. I took a month to get to it. Last week I put in the ECU, and SAM. A few things. Someone stole the radio while it was in the wrecker's lot, I had a locksmith with a STAR computer. he could not teach in the key. That's when I called SOS. So I put in the SAM and ECU, the immobilizer released and the newly programmed key unlock the door and back window. I get lights, wipers, window washer. I turn the key, I hear what I think is a fuel pump and a click in the SAM. Nothing from the starter at all. The dash, I don't see the transmission indicator, I get a blinking key non stop. a wrench and some other things. I can run the shifter through the gears and hear the motor moving under the car. I have been talking to Kane over at Evilution. He thinks SOS didn't program the ECU right. SOS asked me to use my universal ODB2 reader and software to see if the ECU was there. I can't see the ECU. Kane looked at a video I took when I turned the key and he saw I had a gas gauge, he said that means the SAM is talking to the ECU. I have made sure the battery is 13 volts + DC. I put a meter on the blue wire that should energize the starter and get nothing out of it when I am turning the key. I am wondering the if CAN ran through the radio and is broke due to cut wires? Any ideas how to further check the SAM ECU?? Can I put 12 volts on the blue wire when I am turning the key to see if the starter turns. I noticed tonight that I have 11.5 volts on the red power wire coming into the SAM. The battery is 13 + volts?? I know I am asking a hundred Please forgive me. I hope someone can give me a good idea what to do. If I can prove to SOS they did not program the ECU right they will replace it they told me. Please forgive me. This is the link to the video I took of the dash when I turned the key. I hoping some of you seasoned Smart owners can tell me what it all means and maybe give a good idea what to try. Thanks much. https://www.icloud.com/attachment/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcvws.icloud-content.com%2FB%2FARXLuWH2UX5m275RCNHuj_DI8keEAZmrbxEI--WEM9Ni2D3_91lSx3GC%2F%24{f}%3Fo%3DAppMY9vKWtRVRhnTnmg4Kazq7WgkLwoJVKg8RsfYF3hi%26v%3D1%26x%3D3%26a%3DCAogvWQtBt-8P7e_mgME1PWSaT4ryujHhV5u_p8mxiJrTS4SeBCttvGF9S4Yrcbs2f4uIgEAKgkC6AMA_3L1-jBSBMjyR4RaBFLHcYJqJpfR0tzqeN4OAAbKDwlzBqjdXhV_beJZ1K5Azdju69Kugr5QjqjFciaTzPA87XK5CDt75DgQDUMlMDw7aBVXFyYfIR2-hxE_Bgz39RyamQ%26e%3D1614559257%26fl%3D%26r%3D6C17AACB-304E-47CA-AAB3-12B69668ED2A-1%26k%3D%24{uk}%26ckc%3Dcom.apple.largeattachment%26ckz%3DFB018733-47F0-48AB-8B5E-E700B7F661A1%26p%3D68%26s%3DEviE4IW-A_HJWIckbUBI7GCqjG4&uk=inVpVVsvYkGxjaBkVUm8yg&f=IMG_2756.MOV&sz=74147851

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,

Hi Boys, I wondering if there is anyone on Vancouver Island with a STAR for a quick scan on my daughters car. Its an intermittent stall, no-start condition that has the fingerprints of the corroded fuel pump connection in the SAM. Ive driven it a while and finally got it to quit today so before I go rippin and tearin, thought a STAR scan might be wise. Based on what Ive read on this in here this condition can go one of many ways. I did a regular scan a few weeks ago and got a P0087 code, then cleared it and drove it until failure. With this recent no-start, no codes showed with a conventional scanner. The dealer in Victoria is functionally unavailable. I would sure take some advice on how to buy/organize a STAR set-up, too. Thanks in advance Boys.

2005 diesel has a weird noise coming from SAM. attempted to start a few weeks ago and it was trying to start and just shut off and started making this arcing noise. A few months ago I had the normal issue with the connector melting that goes to the fuel pump, I bypassed that and solved that issue. Shortly after that similar issue this time it was a bad ground running to the fuel pump so I fixed that with a new ground. I’ve checked continuity on the ground and it’s good. Fully charged the battery and that’s good. When I move the new connection I made for the fuel pump to a different fuse location the fuel pumps comes on and you can hear it pumping no problem. But you plug it back in where it goes and the noise starts back. So the fuel pump can get power and the ground is good. It’s just that fuse slot for it is where the problem lies. 61100904286__2ECC9F88-DE63-4870-BDFB-380EDB43FC10.MOV

We are new Smart Car owners have had the car for a week, a used car at that--I can only imagine the frustration these SAM failures have caused you longtime owners!! I'm totally unfamiliar with Mercedes Benz --this seems like a manufacturer's defect, why was this never a recall? Bad solder and unsheilded from the dampness--geeez! Have any of you done anything to lessen a dampness problem--some kind of water repellant spray, or plastic cover? I know fuses should be tight in their sockets but gosh it feels like they needed to be broken from corrosion crusties to get them out. Thanks to the Smart Car Club community here for sharing your experiences and fantastic information.

I was driving from Williams Lake to Vancouver. I stopped to fill up with fuel in Hope, and then my car wouldn't start. I had it towed to Vancouver Mercedes to have it looked at. I had a standard maintenance to do anyway. They said that the fuel pump failed electrically, and burned up the wiring bundle. To repair this, they need to replace the fuel pump, the wiring bundle. Since the wiring bundle is attached to the SAM, it has to be replaced also, which in turn, means programming new keys. The ESTIMATE for all this is $3400. Does this sound correct to you? can you give me any thoughts? I have standard maintenance, and a couple of other repairs, so the total is looking like $5000, and that means the car might have to go to the auto recyclers. I'd really like any advice from the Smart car club folks. Thanks, Tony

So I just did the external relay modification to solve the headlight and fuel pump issues. Miraculously she (gf owner) has working low beam headlights, and the car starts. It runs better than I've seen it since she bought the car. Unfortunately now the car won't turn off. I can turn the ignition switch to the off position and remove the key (in neutral) and the car will keep running as long as the brake pedal is depressed. Obviously you just need to take your foot off of the brake once you've parked and the car can be driven normally. That's not good enough, and I would like to find the solution before I make any other improvements. My thought is that the fuel pump wire that I ran out of the SAM has been pierced by one of the solder joints pertaining to the brake light circuit. In the meantime the brake lights function normally. I would think that if they were in contact, the brake lights would be on as long as the fuel pump is running, or some other sort of malfunction. I have read that the brake light switches on the 450s are problematic, but I don't know how the two issues could be related and why it would manifest after the other issues were resolved. A side note is that I can now communicate with the car via the OBD2 port. It had previously lost that functionality and I thought that the OBD2 reader had gone bad until I tested it in a different vehicle and it worked fine. I know I SHOULD start by taking the SAM apart again and checking for a pierced wire, but if I do that I will be inclined to remove the wiring that I used and resolder a smaller gauge wire. Frankly I don't want to do that if the problem lies elsewhere. I am currently using 14 gauge flat speaker wire. It is truly flat, they braided it similar to a ground strap. It is really cool old school hifi car audio cable. 14 gauge is definitely overkill and I could probably get away with 18 gauge and a hot glue gun to keep the wire in place as I route it around solder joints (probably what most sane people do).