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Well, having exhausted all my avenues, I decided to put the car in our sea can storage (where "mouse" sits during the winter). While putting everything back together I hooked up the battery but had to tidy up in the drivers compartment. While putting a few things away I decided to try the light switch and flipped it on and off a few times. The lights went off and came right back on. tried it a few more times with no results. Having the battery hooked back up and it beeping away irritatingly I pulled the fuse in the orange accessory insert (that shut off the park lights and the beeper but not the dash) I decided to flip the light switch again and the dash lights went out. I proceeded to put the instrument cluster back together stuck the fuse back into the orange thing and the park and dash lights were now off. Okay... they stayed off, I cleaned up the rest of my tools then let the wife take it for a drive, it comes back 15-20 min later - no park lights. Did a light check checking all lights and the switch. Everything worked properly and - turned off again.
Now it gets weird.

10 min later with the car shut down, no-one around. The wife walks through the garage the park lights are on and it is beeping to its hearts content. Okay.... Pulled the fuse again, turned the lights on and off, put the fuse back in and.... yes the park and dash lights are off. It has been sitting in the garage for a while now and no park lights, So far.

 

For anyone that knows the wiring and logic in these things this should give us a good clue as to what is going on and where the problem is. As far as i am concerned this is not fixed yet, since we really don't know what is happening and can not be sure it wont reoccur. In fact I fully expect it will.

 


 

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I will say it again, IZZY is the man to see about anything electrical....it's what he does.....and he's good at it....lol.  He deals with it every day at his day job....but that may be too much information...lol.   Stickman007.....PM him if you haven't already and he's not far from you.  Just saying....?

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Thanks for the leads. I will follow up. 

The car is starting to behave and is runnable. The wife took it church and shopping it did do the park light thing at the first stop but as soon as she unlocked it they went out and they have stayed out since.  I am not trusting it though and have a switch (and 10a fuse) wired out of the fuse block to break it and reset it if required.

There is a place for CANBus like engine management but running everything in these (and all newer cars) with it is a drawback. I have to admit, the next engineer I have to fire will never know why I am so happy about it.

Edited by Shamus2006
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Just an update to all that were here helping.
The issue has not reoccurred in the last week and all seems stable.  I do have to turn on the automatic light function again as right now it doesn't do the daytime running lights but other than that so far so good.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks to all for the help on this problem. The car has not had the problem since. Seemingly it has decided to fix it self, at least for now. If it reoccurs I will chime in to see if there are any more updates on what the core issue is and if a fix can be found.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Recurrence.
I kind of expected it would, but see what you can make of it.

After it got washed we got the dash lights on and when the ignition is on - the horn which - will not turn off.   I went through and did a leak check and there is a leak (was) on the passenger side. It came down by the fender on the in and the outside. But there seems to be nothing wiring related that got wet.

I  inspected the SAM  - all dry.  I pulled the lighting module and disassembled it to check for water and it was completely dry, the felts as well.  

 

We will see if the leak is fixed tomorrow, if it is we will let it dry out and see what happens.


Does anyone know a very good s mart mechanic in the Calgary - Red Deer area?

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Izzy (stickman007) is in Edmonton but electrical is his thing.  He does have a full time job but will service smart cars after hours at home.  Izzy is away on vacation for another week or so but message him after that and have a conversation at least. 
 

Nigel

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@stickman007 just left Chilliwack 25 minutes ago, and will be back in Edmonton tonight! He probably has a couple of ideas! Get your multimeter handy. He had my Prius headlamp issue sorted out in 15 minutes yesterday; I had retrograded to halogen headlamps with brand new housings from a tired HID system in my Gen II. The final connection of the new H4 harness from a newly installed relay behind the headlamp had been hooked up incorrectly, and he was actually able to resolve it with no cutting/splicing/resoldering/heat shrinking! Anyway, his IQ on electrical stuff is probably about 180. (Failing that, it's whatever mine is times Pi, lol.)

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