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Old 01-14-2009, 11:10 AM   #1 (permalink)
 
Location: 10.25 PERCENT!
First oddities of our Smart (re: electrical anomalies)

Last night my wife drove home with wipers that would not work, no radio, nor would the seat heaters operate. When I drove it (about an hour later) The radio turned on upon hitting the power button, but the wipers, nor the seaters worked. When turning off the car the radio would not turn off, unless the power button was hit again. When hitting the seat heater switches, they would light up when depressed, but would not work. The wipers had no function whatsoever in any setting. Any clues?

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Old 01-14-2009, 11:21 AM   #2 (permalink)
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Sounds like a case of the smart monster attacking. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

But really no idea. Sounds like some type of electrical system malfunction?

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Old 01-14-2009, 11:35 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Try disconnecting the battery to do a "reboot"



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Old 01-14-2009, 12:28 PM   #4 (permalink)
 
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Strange fuse maybe?

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Old 01-14-2009, 04:37 PM   #5 (permalink)
 
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I vote for rebooting. Usually helps with any unusual behaviors.

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Old 01-14-2009, 05:25 PM   #6 (permalink)
Matt J.
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Another vote for the hard reboot... good/bad thing about this little car is just about everything goes through the computer. The other thing you could check for is moisture where the battery is...think I remember there being a possibility of the A/C condensate hose disconnecting (it runs through the same compartment) and putting water in the area and therefore causing weird electrical issues. The battery is under the carpet and foam in the passenger footwell.

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Old 01-14-2009, 05:51 PM   #7 (permalink)
 
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Or could be loose grounds had 3 loose grounding posts on our '08 the ones under the passenger floorboard

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Old 01-17-2009, 02:50 PM   #8 (permalink)
 
Location: Pennsylvania
After almost 9 months and 12,000 miles of happy driving, my Smart is now acting in the same way. Here's what I did in an attempt to resolve...

Tightened the (3) ground wires as they were lose. I have a funny feeling many Smarts have poorly connecting wires; worth a look and tighten with a 10mm wrench.

Tightening the wires did not resolve so I tried the 'reboot' by disconnecting the battery and waiting a bit before reconnecting.

No luck. Car does to the dealer next week unless someone can point me to a fix.

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Old 01-17-2009, 06:44 PM   #9 (permalink)
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I would have the dealer check it. Just to be sure.

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Old 01-18-2009, 09:32 AM   #10 (permalink)
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Location: Albany, NY
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I would absolutely take it to the dealer....

If they are any dealer at all, they want to know about all these glitchy type things that can happen to the car so they can build their own knowledge base and be able to simply and efficiently deal with customers malfunctioning cars.
I had one the other day when I cold started my car (about +3 degrees) the car started right up and I bolted out of the driveway. At the end of the driveway it began to run very poorly, skipping on what seemed to be one cylinder. I continued on for a short while and it did not go away so I did a U-ey and went one block to the smart dealership. I stopped in their parking lot and decided to try a reboot (turn car off, wait for 5 seconds, then restart)before going in and making an appointment to have car looked at. I turned the car off, waited a few seconds, and then restarted it and it ran just fine! I went in anyway and told them what had happened and they said they had not had any experience with anything like that and that if it happened again to bring it in still skipping. I live very close to the dealership and so can do that without any trouble.
Just thought I'd pass that on to anyone else who may have that experience. Rebooting the electronics with this car, in my experience, has fixed all the glitchy type malfunctions I have had with it so far and that has only been two times total.....

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